Obsolescence of mandatory pre-imprisonment before commitment to a detoxification institution due to crediting of pre-trial detention

The German Federal Court of Criminal Justice (BGH) dismissed the defendant’s appeal as unfounded, thereby upholding the Landgericht Nürnberg-Fürth’s judgment from November 21, 2024, and ordering the defendant to bear the costs of the legal proceeding. The case involved a challenge to a conviction that included both a custodial sentence and an order for commitment to a detoxification institution; the Federal Public Prosecutor had additionally requested a supplementary ruling to mandate one year of prior imprisonment before the commitment, but this request was deemed obsolete. In a supplementary remark, the Court noted that because the defendant had already served over one year of pre-trial detention, which must be credited against the total sentence, the requested order for prior imprisonment was no longer necessary or relevant. The decisive legal basis was § 349(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO), which governs the dismissal of unfounded revisions, applied in conjunction with the mandatory credit of pre-trial detention time toward a final custodial sentence.