Annulment of the Judgment of the Cantonal Court of Basel-Landschaft and Remission of the Case for the Taking of Additional Evidence

Facts

The Criminal Court of Basel-Landschaft convicted X. on February 12, 2014 for various offenses. X. appealed and was acquitted of the charge of burglary at A. AG on December 24, 2012. The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft filed a criminal appeal against this acquittal.

The Federal Supreme Court annuls the judgment of the Cantonal Court and remits the case to the lower instance for the taking of additional evidence and a new decision. The Cantonal Court had justified the acquittal of X. of the charge of burglary on December 24, 2012 on the grounds that various questions relevant to the assessment of the facts could not be clarified on the basis of the file. The Federal Supreme Court considers this to be arbitrary, as these ambiguities could have been resolved with little effort.

Considerations

The Federal Supreme Court states that the court may only close the evidentiary proceedings when it considers the facts to be sufficiently clarified and can assume without arbitrariness that further evidence would not change the result of the evidence. In the present case, the Cantonal Court should have taken additional evidence to clarify open questions about the crime scene.

Only if all necessary evidence has been taken and,…