Cumulative sentencing exclusion due to lack of final substantive judgment following mutual withdrawal of appeals from prior conviction

The Federal Court of Criminal Justice (BGH) rejected the defendant's appeal as unfounded, affirming the lower court's judgment and ordering the defendant to bear the costs of the legal remedy. The dispute concerned the sentencing phase of a criminal trial, specifically whether the Landgericht erred by failing to aggregate earlier sentences from a 2024 district court judgment under cumulative sentencing rules. The court determined that the prior conviction did not meet the statutory requirements for inclusion because both the defendant and the prosecution withdrew their respective appeals in October 2024, meaning no subsequent substantive decision on the merits existed, while the current offenses were committed in June 2024. The decisive legal basis was § 55 Abs. 1 Satz 2 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) regarding cumulative sentencing, which requires a prior final substantive judgment, a condition not met here given the procedural withdrawal of appeals, and § 349 Abs. 2 StPO for the rejection of the revision.