Attempted Intentional Homicide: Dismissal of the Appeal against the Judgment of the High Court of the Canton of Aargau

Facts

The appellant [X.] was sentenced by the District Court of Zofingen to 4½ years' imprisonment for attempted intentional homicide, simple bodily harm, multiple acts of violence, multiple endangerment of life, insult, threat, deprivation of liberty, sexual coercion, and rape. The High Court of the Canton of Aargau dismissed the appellant's appeal. The appellant filed a complaint with the Federal Court and requested the annulment of the judgments of the High Court and the District Court as well as the remittal of the case to the District Court.

The appellant had visited his separated wife in her apartment and attacked her with a kitchen knife after learning of the continued existence of her extramarital relationship. The wife had been able to defend herself against the attack with her left forearm, which was pierced.

Considerations

The Federal Court admitted the complaint insofar as it was directed against the judgment of the High Court. The appellant complained of an obviously incorrect establishment of the facts and challenged the conviction for attempted intentional homicide. He argued that the lower court had wrongly affirmed conditional intent.

The Federal Court stated that the lower court had established the factual findings that the appellant had attacked his wife with a kitchen knife and injured her on the left forearm. The lower court had assumed that a stab with a kitchen knife with a blade length of 11 cm in the chest area of a person could hit a vital organ or a main artery and thus have a lethal effect.

The Federal Court found that the lower court had rightly affirmed conditional intent, as the appellant had stabbed forward reflexively and uncontrollably with the knife against his wife's upper body and a very high risk of injuries with fatal consequences had existed. The Federal Court also rejected the complaint of a violation of the ban on arbitrariness, as the lower court had established the factual findings that the appellant had attacked his wife with the knife and injured her on the left forearm.

The appellant also argued that the act attributed to him fulfilled the elements of attempted grievous bodily harm, as…