Crime Read Free

witnesses provided the necessary information. Every one of them expressed sympathy for Fähner; every one of them was on his side. The mailman said Fähner was “a saint” and “how he’d put up with her” was “a miracle.” The psychiatrist certified that Fähner had suffered an “emotional block,” although he was not free of criminal responsibility.
    The prosecutor asked for eight years. He took his time; he described the sequence of events and went wading through the blood in the cellar. Then he said that Fähner had had other options; he could have gotten a divorce.
    The prosecutor was wrong; a divorce was precisely what had not been an option for Fähner. The most recent reform of the code of criminal procedure has dismissed the oath as an obligatory component of any sworn testimony in a criminal case. We ceased believing in it a long time ago. When a witness lies, he lies—no judge seriously thinks an oath would make him do otherwise, and oaths appear to leave our contemporaries indifferent. But, and this “but” encompasses whole universes, Fähner was not what you’d consider one of our contemporaries. His promise, once given, was inviolable. Promises had bound him all his life; indeed, he was their prisoner. Fähner could not have freed himself; to do so would have amounted to betrayal. The eruption of violence represented the bursting of the pressurized container in which he had been confined his whole life by his oath once given.
    Fähner’s sister, who had asked me to take on her brother’s defense, sat in the public gallery. She wept. His former head nurse held her hand. Fähner had become even thinner in prison. He sat motionless on the dark wooden defendant’s bench.
    With regard to the practicalities of the case, there was nothing to defend. It was, rather, a problem of judicial philosophy: What is the meaning of punishment? Why do we punish? I used my summation to try to establish this. There is a whole host of theories. Punishment should be a deterrent. Punishment should protect us. Punishment should make the perpetrator avoid any such act in the future. Punishment should counterbalance injustice. Our laws are a composite of these theories, but none of them fitted this case exactly. Fähner would not kill again. The injustice of his act was self-evident but difficult to measure. And who wanted to exercise revenge? It was a long summation. I told his story. I wanted people to understand that Fähner had reached the end. I spoke until I felt I had gotten through to the court. When one of the jurors nodded, I sat down again.
    Fähner had the last word. At the end of a trial the court hears the defendant, and the judges have to weigh what he says in their deliberations. He bowed and his hands were clasped one inside the other. He hadn’t had to learn his speech by heart; it was the encapsulation of his entire life.
    “I loved my wife, and in the end I killed her. I still love her, that is what I promised her, and she is still my wife. This will be true for the rest of my life. I broke my promise. I have to live with my guilt.”
    Fähner sat down again in silence and stared at the floor. The courtroom was absolutely silent; even the presiding judge seemed to be filled with trepidation. Then he said that the members of the court would withdraw to begin their deliberations and that the verdict would be pronounced the next day.
    That evening, I visited Fähner in jail one more time. There wasn’t much left to say. He had brought a crumpled envelope with him, out of which he extracted the photograph from their honeymoon, and ran his thumb over Ingrid’s face. The coating on the photo had long since worn away; her face was almost a blank.
    Fähner was sentenced to three years, the arrest warrant was withdrawn, and he was freed from custody. He would be permitted to serve his sentence on daytime release. Daytime release means that the person under sentence must spend nights in jail but is allowed