Facts
The appellant [X.] was convicted by the Zurich District Court of theft, multiple cases of property damage, driving while unfit, and multiple instances of assault. The Zurich Cantonal Court upheld the conviction and set the total sentence at 15 months. The appellant filed a complaint with the Federal Court and requested a reduced sentence.
The lower court had assessed the theft as the most serious offense and set a base sentence of 6 months. The appellant argued that the lower court had evaluated the culpability with regard to the assault and not the theft, and that the base sentence was therefore too high.
The Federal Court overturned the judgment of the Cantonal Court and remanded the case to the lower court for resentencing. It found that the lower court had not sufficiently justified the sentencing and that the imposed sentence was disproportionately severe.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined the sentencing and found that the lower court had assessed the theft as the most serious offense, but had taken into account the culpability with regard to the assault and not the theft. This resulted in an unusually high base sentence of 6 months.
The court emphasized that when forming the total sentence, the individual offenses must be evaluated in a separate step within the extended sentencing framework. The lower court had not done this and instead added the individual sentences and only slightly reduced them.
The Federal Court found that the imposed sentence was…