Daniela Hillers is Writing a Book about the Söring Case!

She's not a lawyer, much less an expert in American criminal law and criminal procedure. This is not going to end well.

You know, I keep wanting to move on to other stories and other cases — and even did so, writing a 24,000-word series about Adnan Syed’s case from “Serial” — but I just can’t seem to quit the Söring case. Every week, the spider seems to catch himself another fly, so there’s always something there to remind me.

A colleague in the media industry has alerted me to this very interesting LinkedIn announcement. It’s from a woman named Daniela Hillers, whose LinkedIn profile lists her only degree as a bachelor’s in history and political science from the RWTH University of Aachen, Germany. Most of her publications are about the Red Army Faction terrorist group from 1970s Germany, a topic I have also written about. She seems to take a very dim view of the RAF, as do I, so good on her!

Hillers says she is now writing a book on the Söring case, and describes the project as follows:

“IN DUBIO PRO REO. Jens Söring and the Long Shadow of Guilt”

will appear at the end of September 2023 in conjunction with the multi-part Netflix series.

What decided it for me was that there are many individual reports, excerpts, blog posts and also an extremely one-sided podcast about Jens Söring, which create ready-made biased stereotypes (vorgezeichnete Stimmungsbilder; whatever that means) and, in part, are totally lacking in quality.

Let’s put an end to the distortions. I have read forensic reports, police reports, hundreds of blog posts from haters (who apparently have all become experts), and 10,000 pages of trial transcripts as source material.

I am assisted by Judge Ralph Guise-Rübe with his expertise.

Well if Judge Guise-Rübe’s on board, what could possibly go wrong? I should note that a German professor and defense lawyer named Lasse Dinter has already welcomed the book project. He writes: “In this case, there’s in fact no objective, neutral, and complete presentation of the evidence. Maybe your book can close this gap.”

Prof. Dinter seems unaware that there actually was an objective, neutral, and complete presentation of the evidence. It’s called Jens Söring’s trial, and it happened in 1990. I’ll be happy to share the transcript with him. His LinkedIn profile does not indicate that Dinter has ever studied law in the United States, nor is there any indication he has any familiarity with American criminal law. Just like Guise-Rübe. But hey, if you understand the German legal system, perhaps that’s a key to understanding all legal systems! Am deutschen Wesen…

But now down to business. First, I’d like to extend Ms. Hillers a warm welcome to the Onoda Society! I also proudly welcome Ms. Hillers to the select circle of persons I like to call, in my own subjective private opinion, Team Söring. Below is the badge:

Armed with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from a German university, Ms Hillers is well-equipped to understand the nuances of a 40-year-old murder case in a legal system as different from Germany’s as night is from day.

She rather ungraciously described bloggers who are actually “haters” who think they’ve become “experts”. Those bloggers are, of course, myself and Holdsworth, since we are the only two people who have extensively addressed Söring’s claims in blogs. Holdsworth is a UK solicitor, so he already has forgotten more about how a common-law legal system works than Hillers will ever know.

I don’t like to blow my own horn too much on this blog, since it’s the arguments and evidence that count most. However, the implication that I’m not an expert is an tiresome insult. I have a J.D. from the University of Houston and an LL.M. from Harvard Law school. I’ve written a book and about 15 scholarly articles, mainly on criminal and constitutional law. I’ve represented clients in death-penalty cases before the Texas courts, the federal courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Am I really just a “hater” masquerading as so-called expert? Well, I literally f**king specialize in the precise areas of American law relevant to Söring’s case, so there’s that. I have spent decades studying this area of the law, publishing about it, and even changing it (details, very technical, available upon request). You don’t need to agree with my assessments, just as you don’t need to accept Jürgen Klinsmann’s opinions about how to run a football team.

But just as Klinsmann knows a thousand times more about running a football team than a middle-school soccer coach, I know a thousand times more about Jens Söring’s case and the law applicable to it than Hillers (or Guise-Rübe, or Dinter) does. This goes especially for Guise-Rübe, whose arrogant attack on the American justice system I have already countered — with no response at all from him.

The first error is in the title of the book itself. In dubio pro reo is a Latin maxim which means “in cases of doubt, rule for the accused”. In his Welt interview, Guise-Rübe implies that this rule applies in Germany, but not the United States. This is an error so blatant that I’d have failed a student who made it back when I was teaching. The phrase “in dubio pro reo” appears in innumerable American court opinions, including a Supreme Court judgment from 1895. The American legal system gives life to this principle by demanding proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” for every criminal conviction. That principle was applied to Söring’s case, but he lost, because there was, and is, no genuine doubt about his guilt.

Further, the principle no longer applies when a defendant is convicted and his appeals are upheld. After that point, the state no longer needs to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt because it has already done so. That’s literally the purpose of a criminal trial. And of course the same principle holds in Germany — once a defendant has been convicted and loses his appeals, he bears the burden of proving his trial was unfair or that he is innocent, which is nearly impossible in Germany, as it is in the USA.

Ms. Hiller’s arrogance astounds. She doesn’t even have a German law degree, but is now going to instruct us what to think about a case which happened in a legal system she has no training in. It’s like a bicycle repairman writing a book on Formula 1 engine design, or a paramedic writing a book on how to treat oligodendroglioma, or a weekend metal-detector hobbyist writing a book about how to excavate a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian city.

In other words, Hillers is way, way out of her league here.

I have already posted a comment on Ms. Hillers’ LinkedIn page urging her to re-think this project (will the comment be deleted?). This book is a disaster waiting to happen. Of course, I will order an advance copy and book some column-inches in a German newspaper to review it. If it’s anything like Jens Söring’s own books (and I suspect it will be), there will be a legal error on just about every page.

Ordinarily I try to be somewhat charitable towards people I disagree with, but this time, I won’t pull any punches. This project smacks of arrogance (I’m tempted to say German arrogance), and deserves a fair but firm response from an actual expert. Such as myself. In addition to the review, I will publish a detailed mistake-by-mistake response on this blog. Here, I have no word limits!

There’s a long list of journalists and writers who have staked their reputations to Jens Söring credibility and his innocence claims, and come to regret it. For instance, Karin Steinberger. It’s alarming to see Hillers walking straight into this buzz-saw, but if she truly has done all the research she claims to, she knows exactly what she’s getting into and will have nobody to blame but herself.