German Judge Alleges that American Judges "Often" Frame Innocent People & Have No Interest in the Truth

In a blistering, error-filled attack on the American courts, Judge Ralph Guise-Rübe says there is no "rule of law" in American courtrooms.

1981 Soviet poster: “I vote for Freedom and Democracy!”

On Friday, December 9, the German newspaper Die Welt printed one of the most extraordinary articles I’ve read in recent times: A poisonous attack on the entire American criminal-justice system — filled with cliches, errors and exaggerations — by a sitting German judge, Dr. Ralph Guise-Rübe, President of the Hannover Regional Court.

In this interview, Guise-Rübe declares his opinion that there is no “rule of law” in the United States, and that judges and prosecutors “often” frame innocent people to present a “culprit” to voters, because being re-elected is more important to them than “actually finding the truth”. American prisoners, he alleges, have no access to training, education, or therapy and will all “die in prison”.

I have lived in Germany 20 years, and I have rarely seen a clearer example of anti-Americanism than this interview. And I have most certainly never seen attacks like this coming from a sitting judge. This interview will surely have repercussions. (I have reached out to Die Welt to offer to deliver a contrary perspective and correct the factual errors in the interview, but they have so far declined).

What you will find below is my preliminary analysis and response to Guise-Rübe’s many accusations. If you can read German, you should buy a subscription, get past the paywall, and read the interview in the original. There’s really no substitute. But for people who don’t speak German, I have provided paraphrase summaries of the judge’s comments (Germany has no fair-use laws, so quotations have to be used sparingly) and provide my rebuttal.

How we Got Here

By this late date, the „Jens Söring is innocent“ bus is nearly empty. Söring no longer receives invitations to speak on nationwide TV, and most interviews with him are now relegated to small local newspapers. Pretty much the entire German media landscape is now aware that Jens Söring’s innocence story is bogus. Some have even expressed regret for having endorsed his innocence.

But now, even at this late date, someone is still willing to believe Söring’s long-discredited arguments. And that person is a sitting German judge. His name is Dr. Ralph Guise-Rübe, and he is the President of the Hannover Regional Court. He is also the Chair of the Hannover Legal Studies Society, closely tied to the University of Hannover, which has invited Jens Söring to speak on Tuesday, December 13, in a courtroom at the Hannover Regional Court. Quite an achievement for a murderer and con-man who has lied under oath twice in court.

As this interview makes clear, Söring achieved this coup by getting a German judge not only to believe his claims, but apparently to adopt some of Söring’s opinions. Let’s get to it, subject by subject:

This could never have happened in Germany

The judge is first asked why he finds the case so extraordinary, and he responds that there aren’t any cases like it in Europe, or especially Germany.

It’s hard to know what this means, but of course there are hundreds of cases in Germany in which defendants were convicted solely on circumstantial evidence – and without any confessions, unlike in this case. Examples are Andreas Darsow and Benedikt Toth. Notice I am not saying that Darsow and Toth are innocent, although they do have their supporters and websites. I am saying that there are hundreds of people in German prisons on less evidence than was used to convict Söring. But Guise-Rübe seems uninterested in them. That’s typical for critics of American criminal justice such as Guise-Rübe: They’re eager to denounce conditions in the USA, but not in their own countries. As we will see, Guise-Rübe seems to believe Germany to be a sort of paragon of rigteousness.

Guise-Rübe Incorrectly Claims to Have Read the Entire Record of the Söring Case

Guise-Rübe claims to have read the full trial record, one of the appeals, and forensic analyses and estimates the total amount at 2000 pages.

Guise-Rübe’s numbers are all wrong. The trial transcript just in Jens Söring’s case is 3,512 pages long. Elizabeth Haysom’s trial is 741 pages long. Just the appendixes of only one of Söring’s appeals are 1,423 pages long.

Those are only a few of the key sources, and that’s already 5,676 pages. Whatever Guise-Rübe read (probably only the standard “media pack” of pro-Söring information, plus a few extras), it wasn’t close to the entire record of the case. I note that in a picture accompanying the article, there is a file folder labelled “Drifter” Killer Suspects. This is, of course, badly out of date, since they have already been ruled out.

By email, I asked Guise-Rübe which documents he had read to prepare. He never responded to me. So it’s safe to assume he has never read the Wright report, or Siegfried Stang’s book, or even the complete trial record. I also asked him whether he had ever studied American criminal law or been present during an American criminal trial. Again, no response.

But that didn’t stop him from launching an all-out attack on the US criminal justice system, as we’re about to see.

Contradictions and Doubts?

Guise-Rübe claims that there are still important “contradictions” in the case which the American courts never bothered to resolve.

If nobody ever investigated the case, then where did those 5,676 pages of records come from? Guise-Rübe’s statement is an insult to the hundreds of people who put thousands of hours into painstakingly securing the “overwhelming” evidence needed to convict Jens Söring.

Guise-Rübe claims that the remaining “doubts” about the case, which he doesn’t specifically identify, would have led to Söring being acquitted in a German court

Amazingly for a judge, Guise-Rübe does not identify what legal standard he thinks should apply here. In Virginia, as in the United States, all criminal defendants must be convicted “beyond a reasonable doubt” unanimously by all twelve members of the jury. If even one juror has a reasonable doubt, the defendant cannot be convicted. This has been established law in the United States for centuries.

There is no “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in German law. Instead, judges are instructed to “freely evaluate” the evidence (that is, they are not bound by specific legal rules), and to find the defendant guilty only when they are convinced he is guilty under the applicable laws. If they have a serious doubt about the defendant’s guilt, they are to give him the benefit of it (in dubio pro reo). But only genuine doubts matter.

Neither system requires proof “beyond doubt” because that is impossible. Guise-Rübe never identifies what level of doubt would require a German court to find Söring innocent. But that doesn’t stop him speculating.

🇩🇪 Another reason Söring wouldn’t have been convicted in Germany is that “At least in Germany, we do not assume guilt, but rather innocence - until the opposite is proven beyond doubt.”

See the German flag by the above summary? That’s to indicate a strain of chauvinism and parochialism which will appear again and again in this interview. One reason Guise-Rübe distrusts the American criminal justice system…is because it’s not the criminal-justice system of 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪 , which he portrays as a model of probity and humanity. You see, he lectures us, some countries like the USA assume suspects are guilty, but not 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪.

Guise-Rübe here insinuates that there is no presumption of innocence in American courts. Can he really believe this? The presumption of innocence has been a core foundation of American criminal law for longer than Germany has been a nation. As the Supreme Court said in 1895: “The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.”

Jens Söring’s jury was instructed: “The Court instructs the jury that the defendant is presumed to be innocent. You should not assume the defendant is guilty because he has been indicted and is on trial. This presumption of innocence remains with the defendant throughout the trial, and is enough to require you to find the defendant not guilty unless and until the Commonwealth proves each and every element of the offense beyond  reasonable doubt.” (June 18, pp. 32-33).

The role of the presumption of innocence in the American justice system is so renowned worldwide that even German schoolchildren have often heard of it. Either Guise-Rübe is not aware of this basic fact, or he has chosen to ignore it. Neither reflects well on him.

Virginia Didn’t Care Whether Söring’s Confessions Were Accurate

Asked about Söring’s confessions, Guise-Rübe sets out another clueless comparison between the USA and Germany. He claims that German judges will not just stop investigating when they get a confession – they will try to find out whether the confession was accurate. The “crucial difference” between the USA and Germany is that German judges will go beyond the confession and make sure the defendant is guilty “beyond doubt”. Guise-Rübe also points out that Elizabeth Haysom testified against Söring even though she was also involved in the crime, implying that nobody paid attention to this conflict of interest.

In America, detectives and judges and defense attorneys closes up shop after the suspect confesses: “Well, we got him!”. They just chuck him in prison, and nobody cares whether his confession was true. And they let witnesses testify even if they have conflicts of interest. But here in 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪 (cue swelling chords of the national anthem) we do things differently, you see.

Not to put to fine a point on it, this is b*ll*cks. The circumstances and reliability of Jens Sörings confession were the subject of a 5-day hearing in March 1990 which generated a 938-page long transcript. Kenneth Beever and Terry Wright flew over to the United States to testify during this hearing. Jens Söring was permitted to testify. After the hearing was over, Judge William Sweeney wrote a 16-page order summarizing his findings, which you can download here. It includes Judge Sweeney’s official finding that Sörings sworn testimony was untruthful. (“Simply stated, I do not believe Söring on this issue.”, p. 3). The Bedford County District Court did more to probe the circumstances of Sörings confessions than any German court I have ever seen.

Has Guise-Rübe read any of these documents? Given that he doesn’t even seem to know how long the trial record is, I doubt it.

As for proving that the confession was corroborated, that was done in a minor proceeding called the “trial on the merits”, which lasted for three weeks. The police and prosecutors corroborated Söring’s confession by finding the Type O blood found where his confessions predicted, the bloody sockprint, the letters and notes in the travel diary (which even Söring described on June 7, 1986 as “incredibly damning”!), his sudden flight from the law after cleaning up his fingerprints, and the corroborating testimony of Elizabeth Haysom, who described the motive and preparations for the crime in detail. That’s more corroboration for a confession than I’ve seen in many German criminal cases.

As for Elizabeth Haysom, it’s unclear what Guise-Rübe means here. He is trapped in thinking about the American criminal justice system like the German system – he appears to think there’s some sort of “investigating magistrate judge” who should have looked into Elizabeth Haysom’s motives and decided “oh, we can’t trust her”. Elizabeth’s credibility was a matter for the jury to decide. Nobody concealed from them the fact that she was also a part of the crime, and that she had given inconsistent statements. The jury was presented with all relevant evidence about her credibility, and heard her testify in person – and be sharply cross-examined – for hours. The idea that the jury was somehow unaware of her credibility problems is absurd.

Guise-Rübe now deems it important that Söring was charged with the murders of the Haysoms only five days after giving a full confession in England. Guise-Rübe says this is important because, after the indictment for murder, the prosecutor now only investigates the case to find things “unfavorable” to the defendant.  Which, in turn, means that it was “not even remotely considered” whether Söring’s confession might be false. This would not have happened in 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪, and Guise-Rübe considers it “striking and absurd”.

Again, Guise-Rübe blunders because of his ignorance of adversarial criminal justice systems. He seems to believe that the district attorney in American criminal cases is obliged to investigate “neutrally” before he or she obtains an indictment, but then after the indictment, is only obliged to look for proof against the Defendant.

This is all a confused mess. There are no investigating magistrates in America, and prosecutors have a different role than they do in Germany. In the American criminal justice system, the prosecutor is obliged to investigate the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to charge the accused, and then to put that evidence forward in court. It is the role of the defense to locate and present evidence favorable to the accused. Nevertheless, American prosecutors are required to share exculpatory (i.e.) favorable evidence with the defense if they come across it during their investigation. The prosecutor is obliged to play fair and investigate thoroughly, but is not obliged to actively seek evidence to help the defense. That is the defense’s job. And Söring had two well-paid, experienced defense lawyers who did just that, and did it well.

So the indictment of Söring for murder had no relevance at all to the prosecutor’s duties or role. The prosecutor also just keeps looking for more evidence, until he or she thinks they have enough. If the evidence points the finger at the defendant, the prosecutor will use it later at court. If the evidence helps the defendant, the prosecutor will turn it over to the defense, assuming they’re conscientious. The court found no evidence of any prosecutorial misconduct in Söring’s trial. Nor does the defense’s role change: He or she just keeps gathering evidence favorable to the accused, and looking for holes and weaknesses in the state’s case.

Guise-Rübe doesn’t seem to understand these basic aspects of an adversarial criminal justice system. I suggest this website so he can start learning about them. I suppose this is what you would expect from someone who, as far as we know, has never studied American criminal law or even set foot in an American criminal court.

The reporter asks what the German system would have done (Guise-Rübe’s favorite topic). He says the court would have delved more into Söring’s childhood, asked whether he has a personality disorder or other mental problems. Guise-Rübe believes it hard to imagine that someone coming from a “premium household” (his words) could have committed this act and driven his life so completely off the rails.

It's hard to follow precisely what Guise-Rübe is talking about here – although he makes it clear that he regards Söring’s “premium” upper-class background as some kind of evidence of his innocence. That’s some pretty naked class bias from a sitting German judge, in my opinion. But it fits in with the general pattern: For some people, as soon as they decide Söring in his mid-50s is a gentle, mild-mannered soul who couldn’t possibly have ever killed anyone, no evidence will ever change their minds. As Annabel H. put it in “The Soering System”, Soering’s supporters could have caught him with a knife dripping blood, and would still have come up with some excuse for him.

As for Söring’s personality characteristics, those are relevant to his sentencing, not to the guilty verdict. All you have to prove is that someone did the crime, not why they did it. Same in Germany: You don’t have to prove motive. Did Söring had a mental illness sufficient to excuse the crime? No. Söring’s lawyers had him analyzed by two psychiatrists – to whom he gave full confessions – and neither found that Söring was legally insane at the time of the crime, which was the only defense available in Virginia.

The idea that you can judge whether someone is capable of murder just by looking at them is so naïve that it’s startling a judge said it. The idea that people from “premium backgrounds” are somehow fundamentally incapable of violence is so naïve (and classist) that it’s startling a judge said it.

Guise-Rübe recycles Söring’s Least-Convincing Arguments

Guise-Rübe now recycles a bunch of weak arguments Söring has made from time to time, including the supposed “contradiction” that Söring used a knife instead of a gun, even though, to quote Guise-Rübe, guns are available on “every streetcorner” in the USA.

No anti-American rant is complete without a reference to America as a gun-crazy Mad Max dystopia where children are taught how to fire guns before they learn to tie their shoes. If Guise-Rübe thinks guns were available on “every streetcorner” in Virginia in 1985, he is gravely mistaken. He appears ignorant of the fact that Washington, DC had, by most accounts, the strictest gun laws in the country in 1985. As the Supreme Court noted in 2008: “[Washington, D.C.] generally prohibits the possession of handguns. It is a crime to carry an unregistered firearm, and the registration of handguns is prohibited.”

Even if Söring had bought a pistol legally in Virginia – which would have been extremely difficult for an 18-year-old foreigner to do, and would have left a paper trail – he could not have legally brought the gun into Washington, D.C. And it would have been impossible for Söring or Haysom to buy a firearm in Washington, D.C., since that city “generally prohibits the possession of handguns”.

Again, Guise-Rübe relies on a tired anti-American cliché to substitute for actual research.

Now Guise-Rübe turns to another one of Söring’s weaker arguments: If Söring is so smart, then why didn’t he plan the crime better?

Söring said himself he had the “dinner scene” planned out. He also said that he had not finally decided to kill the Haysoms as he left Washington, D.C.

If Guise-Rübe is suggesting Söring should have used a gun to make the process quicker, why? Loud gunshots and light-flashes would have attracted attention in a quiet suburban neighborhood late at night, and guns, unlike knives, are notoriously easy to trace.

In any event, Söring destroyed the evidence so thoroughly that he remained off the police radar screen for four months, and might have even gotten away with them had he not confessed. So no, the crime wasn’t botched at all.

Guise-Rübe now says he can’t understand how an 18-year-old with no history of violence could have overcome the psychological barrier to killing people. It must have been especially trying for Söring because the victims “probably” fought back. How could such a gentle young man steel himself for such a horrible deed?

Surely Guise-Rübe knows that both in American and German law, proof of the motive for a crime – or a full examination of the defendant’s personality – is not necessary for conviction. As long as you can prove that someone did the crime, you need not prove why.

Guise-Rübe makes more blunders here. First of all, he says the victims “probably” fought back. Doesn’t he know? Of course the victims fought back – they had numerous defensive wounds and even managed to inflict an injury on Söring. This is mentioned dozens of times in the autopsy reports and trial testimony, and in Söring’s own confessions. How is he still unsure about this?

Guise-Rübe also says Söring was never violent before he murdered the Haysoms. Again, wrong. In his interview with the Bonn District Attorney on 30 December 1986, Söring said:

[A]fter having finished High School I took a few days holiday in Mexico and fell in love with a girl. Nothing happened there. When I then got to university, some time in the middle of November, I don't know it exactly anymore, I once got completely stoned, because of this girl. That was the only time that I got drunk to such an extent, that I laid down and woke up 3-4 hours later, being told by all my friends who lived in this apartment - that was in Autumn 1984 - that I attacked friends once or twice and tried to fight with them, but was drunk. I could not remember any of it, one has put me into bed again without anything happening. What I drank then was half a bottle of Calua liqueur mixed with half a bottle of Vodka. That was quite a lot and considerably high proof alcohol. That was the only time that I myself have attacked somebody physically, and that was under the influence of the alcohol that was therefore something very decisive.”

Söring himself says that alcohol has a “very decisive” effect on this previous violent act, and of course he drank several beers and “stiff drinks” before he murdered the Haysoms. But was his relationship to Elizabeth intense enough to drive him to actual violence? Well, one of his classmates said that his relationship with her was “pathological”, that she appeared to be “his whole life”. He himself described feeling as if he were “one person” with Elizabeth.

So, yes.

Where’s the Luminol?

Guise-Rübe now stumbles into the luminol trap.  Elizabeth says she washed the car with Coca-Cola. But If Söring was “covered in blood”, then where was the luminol in the rental car?

More mistakes. Söring wasn’t covered in blood. He put on a bedsheet to absorb the remaining bloodstains after cleaning himself in the house and throwing away his bloody clothing. Some bloodstains may have seeped through the bedsheet. Guise-Rübe seems unaware of the fact that Coca-Cola does interfere with luminol.

The reason no luminol was detected is that (1) there were never any deep bloodstains in the vehicle; (2) Elizabeth cleaned the interior twice with a substance known to affect luminol; (3) the rental clerk noted the car was unusually clean on its return; (4) the luminol test was not performed until 87 days after the crime. By that time, the car could have been rented out, returned, and professionally cleaned 30 or 40 times. Even if there had been pools of blood in it (which there weren’t), I suspect 35 rounds of powerful industrial cleaners spraying out of a high-pressure hose would have taken care of them.

The bloody sock-print, Guise-Rübe claims, would not have been considered “sufficient evidence” in Germany.

Nor was it at Söring’s trial. It was merely corroboration of Söring’s lengthy, detailed confessions, which were full of knowledge only the killer could have obtained. Why is Guise-Rübe endorsing Söring’s discredited claim that the sock-print convicted him?

Söring’s DNA wasn’t found at the crime scene, nor were his fingerprints or hair.

The fact that there is no forensic evidence conclusively linking a defendant to a crime scene does not require acquittal, either in the USA or Germany. There are thousands of people in prison in Germany for crimes not proven by conclusive forensic evidence. They are there for the same reason Söring is: They confessed to the crime, they made guilty statements, their confessions were corroborated by various kinds of evidence, and their co-defendant gave evidence to help convict them.

The bloody sockprint was of course evidence consistent with Söring’s presence at the crime scene, as were the Type O bloodstains, which were found exactly where Söring’s confessions indicated they would be.

American courts “often” frame innocent people to please voters

The newspaper asks why the authorities supposedly ignored all of these important factors. Guise-Rübe responds that the system is political and that in American criminal trials: “it is often not about actually finding out the truth, but about presenting a culprit to the people.” Since prosecutors and judges are elected and want to keep their jobs, they have to achieve convictions. Guise-Rübe says the error rate in American courtrooms is five percent, although he cites no evidence to back up this claim.

Would a sitting German judge actually suggest that American judges — fellow members of his august profession — “often” frame innocent people because they don’t care about the truth?

Apparently, yes!

These are yet more nasty cliches, unworthy of a sitting judge. And they’re a group libel of American judges and prosecutors. Guise-Rübe should issue a formal apology for this disgraceful attack.

Now he draws the contrast with 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪, in which judges are always completely personally independent and objective.

German judges are paradigms of professional detachment and impartiality – presumably including the one who was just arrested (g) for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the German government.

Anyone who’s spoken for more than 5 minutes to any German lawyer will laugh at this naive statement. There is just as much of a problem with judicial bias in Germany as there is anywhere else. Some judges hand down longer sentences, some lighter ones. Some judges dislike immigrants, other judges are immigrants. Some judges think left-wing violence is a serious problem, others think right-wing violence is.

But that doesn’t mean these judges cannot put aside their biases. In every country which respects the rule of law, judges are expected to rule independently and without bias. Most do, but there are always exceptions. Guise-Rübe, however, seems to think that judicial bias is the exception in Germany but is the rule in the USA.

Nonsense. Both German and American are subjected to strong, mandatory, binding codes of ethics. Oh wait, that’s inaccurate – German judges are not governed by a binding code of ethics, only by broad “principles”. Most American states thus have stronger ethical laws for judges than Germany does, because they are set down as rules, not principles, and are legally binding. In both countries, the overwhelming evidence shows that judges do their jobs fairly and impartially, and that there are effective penalties for judges who break the law.

And now comes the obligatory jury-bashing, always a highlight of the anti-American’s indictment of the system. How can you expect juries to make the right decisions? They have no legal training. Thus, they were bamboozled by the sock-print. In 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪, things are different, we live by the principle that it’s better to let a guilty man go free than convict one wrongly.

We were all waiting for the “dumb-jury” cliche, and here it comes! Guise-Rübe seems to believe that only the German justice system follows the principle that convicting the innocent is worse than sparing the guilty.

Wrong again. The principle that it is better to let 10 (or 100, or one) guilty person go free than to convict an innocent one is a bedrock principle of the entire common-law legal system. William Blackstone said it in 1769, and even upped the number to 10: “[B]etter that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” Blackstone, of course, was a crucial influence on American law.

In 1895, The US Supreme Court noted that the principle was one of the core tenets of American jurisprudence, and cited Roman law to show its antiquity: “The noble (divus) Trajan wrote to Julius Frontonus that no man should be condemned on a criminal charge in his absence, because it was better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent.”

American law has respected the principle that convicting the innocent is worse than freeing the guilty since before Germany was a country. Guise-Rübe’s comment is an insulting cliché based in ignorance. He owes American judges and juries an apology.

Would Söring have gotten 7 years in Germany?

Guise-Rübe now argues that Söring would have been tried as a youth, and gotten a seven-year sentence had he been tried in Germany.

All of this is counterfactual speculation. German law allows for defendants between 18 and 21 years of age to be tried either as juveniles or as adults. It does not require that they be tried as juveniles. It is impossible to say whether Söring would have been tried as “juvenile” instead of an adult. A German legal website notes: “When the accused is between 18 and 21, there must always be an individual case-by-case decisions whether he shall be tried under juvenile law or the law for adults.”

The relevant German law is Section 105 of the Youth Courts Act (JGG):

It provides that when someone between 18 and 21 commits an office under general criminal law, a judge shall apply juvenile law if:

1.     An overall evaluation of the offender’s personality, including conditions of his environment, show that at the time of the crime, the offender was, in light of his moral and intellectual development, in a similar position as to a juvenile, or

2.     In light of the type of offense, the circumstances, or the motives, the act appears to be the kind of misconduct typical of young people (Jugendfverfehlung).

This is my reading of the law (please correct me if I’m wrong). First, I hope we can all agree that a double-murder in cold blood is not the kind of misconduct typical of young people. If not, we’re all in a lot of trouble.

As for Söring’s “moral and intellectual” development – was he more like an adult or a juvenile? – let’s review. He had lived in four different countries, spoke two languages fluently, gotten accepted with a full scholarship at one of the world’s great universities, had an outstanding academic record, had a drivers’ license, and was even allowed to drink. Oh, and let’s not forget the “premium” family! Not exactly what I would call a case of arrested development.

Had Söring been tried as an adult under German law – which, as noted above, was entirely possible – it’s very likely he would have been convicted of murder. Under Germany’s somewhat antiquated murder laws, an intentional killing will be classified as murder if the defendant “kills a human being out of murderous intent, to satisfy sexual desires, out of greed or otherwise base motives, insidiously or cruelly, or with means dangerous to the public, or in order to commit or cover up another crime.”

It is a big deal in German law if you kill someone “insidiously” – that is, by exploiting surprise or trickery. That’s exactly what Söring did here. Other potential qualifications might also apply. So Söring could have been convicted of murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence with a minimum parole date of 15 years. Söring’s crime, however, could also have qualified as being “one of special culpability” (besondere Schwere der Schuld), since, of course, Söring horribly butchered two people and never showed the slightest remorse. If the court finds special culpability, the presumed minimum parole date is 25 years.

So could Söring have gotten seven years, as Guise-Rübe argues? Sure, with a sympathetic judge. But he could also have been tried as an adult, given a life sentence, and ended up spending almost as much time in prison in Germany as he did in the USA. We’ll never know, because Söring chose to murder his victims in Virginia, and there never was, or will be, any reason to apply German law to him.

Guise-Rübe restates Söring’s argument nearly verbatim

Now Guise-Rübe acting almost as a mouthpiece for Jens Söring, and I have the proof. Guise-Rübe first notes that 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪 is much more humane than America, since even murderers get a chance to leave prison after 15 years, in ordinary cases. He then draws what he claims is the contrast with America. Here I’m going to quote, because the precise wording is important: “In America, people go to prison to die. Life imprisonment actually means life imprisonment. There are no approaches to resocialisation, training, therapy or anything like that.”

Why is the direct quote important? Because Guise-Rübe here is literally repeating arguments Jens Söring makes almost word-for-word. And the proof is right here on this blog.

Just a few days ago, I posted an open letter (in German) to the Hannover Legal Studies Society. There, I warned them that Söring would make exaggerated claims about American prisons in his speech. I know this because I have read many interviews with him and watched his Internet videos. This is what I told the Society, compared with what Guise-Rübe said:

“Mr. Söring claims over and over that in the USA, ‘life means life’: that is, almost everyone who is convicted of murder will sit in prison for the rest of their life and die there”.

Guise-Rübe: “In America, people go to prison to die. Life imprisonment actually means life imprisonment.”

I also warned the Society that Söring would falsely claim that in American prisons,

the prison administration “doesn’t care about rehabilitation, vocational training, or therapy.”

Guise-Rübe: “There are no approaches to rehabilitation, training, therapy or anything like that.”

Amazing: In predicting the cliches Jens Söring would spout about American prisons, I also predicted the cliches Guise-Rübe would spout. I wonder why that is?

And is it nonsense? It sure is! First of all, according to a thorough study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, of all the people who go to prison for murder or non-negligent manslaughter in the USA, the average time they spend before their first release from prison is 15 years, and 70% of murder convicts are released before 20 years.

So no, “life” doesn’t mean life. Another one bites the dust.

Is it true that American prisons don’t provide any rehabilitation, education, or therapy? Of course not.

The Mission Statement of the Virginia Department of Corrections is:

“The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is the largest state agency with more than 11,000 employees across the Commonwealth. We operate secure facilities and probation and parole offices to provide care and supervision for inmates under state custody. Virginia currently has the nation's second-lowest recidivism rate at 22.3 percent.

Mission

We are in the business of helping people to be better by safely providing effective incarceration, supervision, and evidence-based re-entry services to inmates and supervisees.

Vision

A premier correctional organization where all individuals achieve their full potential.

Values

Citizenship. Commitment. Communication. Ethics. Honesty. Learning. Safety. Support.”

This is exactly the same stuff you see on German prison websites. By the way, Germany’s recidivism (Rückfall) rate is 34%, according to this study. Recidivism rates are notoriously hard to pin down, but it sure looks like here, Virginia’s doing a better job than 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪. Perhaps that’s because Virginia law explicitly requires a plan for “re-entry” into society to be drawn up for every prisoner. And because it offers prisoners and parolees dozens of vocational-training programs and even has an award-winning program for allowing prisoners to obtain college degrees. And of course, there are mental-health services available for inmates.

Does reality always live up to these promises? Of course not, that’s never the case, even in 🇩🇪 Fair Germany 🇩🇪. There are still serious problems in American prisons, being addressed by a nationwide wave of reform efforts. But this certainly shows that Virginia certainly offers training, education, and therapy to inmates who want these things, and many inmates do take advantage of them. And who’s a good example of this? Elizabeth Haysom, who learned computer drafting and animal training behind bars, as well as Braille translation.

Is Söring A Victim of Cancel Culture? Or the Canceler-In-Chief?

The reporter now asks Guise-Rübe what he thinks of people who object to Jens Söring touring German and earning money on the basis of his crimes. Guise-Rübe says that Söring has a right to tell his story, and that he finds it deeply questionable for people to be “swinging a moral cudgel” at him.

Guise-Rübe apparently thinks people should just forget about whether Jens Söring intentionally murdered two people, or whether he feels any remorse for that crime. Further, he relies on one of Söring’s most popular rhetorical moves: feigned surprise and wounded innocence. Söring has spend years dishing out insults, defamation, and falsehoods, injuring the reputations of dozens of people. Yet once someone points out this fact, or criticizes him for these attacks, Söring reacts with feigned surprise and wounded innocence: “Why are you picking on little old me? I’m just trying to live my life here. This is a manhunt!” I couldn’t resist a meme:

The reporter now says that Söring’s previous speech at Hamburg university was cancelled because of threats.

Neither Jens Söring nor the University have ever provided any evidence that anyone sent any threats to the University. They have never provided any evidence anyone threatened to “disrupt” Söring’s speech. They never filed a lawsuit or a police complaint.

People did send polite letters objecting to a German university providing a stage for an unrepentant killer to speak without any objective moderation or contrary perspectives. The only explanation is that the law faculty felt “threatened” by polite criticism. Unless, of course, Söring or the University have actual evidence to back up their claims. But if they did, they would presumably have shown it to us by now.

I don’t believe this evidence exists. There were no threats.

Now Guise-Rübe complaints he’s been “bombarded” with complaints for offering Söring the chance to speak in a courtroom. He thinks it’s a kind of “manhunt” against Söring.

Now it’s Guise-Rübe’s turn to feign surprise and wounded innocence. He invites one of the most controversial people in Germany and is surprised when lots of people object? What did he expect?

Sending politely-worded complaint letters isn’t a “manhunt”, it’s democracy in action. And you know who is the prime beneficiary of politely-worded complaint letters? Jens Söring. Throughout his imprisonment, he initiated letter-writing campaigns (Briefwellen) in which thousands of people wrote American judges and officials. He did this eight separate times! American lawmakers and judges had to deal with hundreds of politely-worded letters of complaint. Why is Guise-Rübe so disturbed by a few dozen?

If Guise-Rübe is concerned for Söring’s ability to survive these horrifying letters, rest assured: Söring knows how to try to silence critics. He sued me unsuccessfully, and filed complaints against other critics of his innocence claims which cost them plenty of hassle. Söring’s not the victim of cancel culture, he’s the canceler-in-chief.

Guise-Rübe says it’s “destructive” to try to silence Jens Söring because he’s just trying to find his way back into society, and we should all support that.

Nobody has any objection to Jens Söring stating his case. But he doesn’t have a right to do it in a German courtroom. Further, the notion that Söring is just a meek, reformed convict just trying to find his way back into society is laughable. Jens Söring is an unrepentant double-murderer who has never expressed the slightest remorse. He thought about making money off of his story even back in 1986, when he was a confessed murderer. After his release, he was paid handsomely by Random House for a book about his story. He is actively seeking publicity every changes he gets, and has a website run for him by media professionals. He’s on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

As the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court recently said of Söring: “Since his return, he has not lived a secluded life. Instead, he is consciously appearing the light of publicity as a supposed ‘victim of injustice’ and commercializing his life story.”

Nobody is preventing Söring from speaking his mind. As I’ve frequently pointed out, I personally don’t complain when Söring is invited by private groups to speak in private settings. I complain only when prominent German institutions which have a special responsibility to the truth and which are funded by my tax dollars grant him a stage that I complain. Söring’s right to free speech doesn’t include a right to be free from criticism, and that goes double for the public, taxpayer-funded institutions who invite him.

If the public employees of public institutions who give Söring a stage don’t like polite criticism for doing this, then they shouldn’t invite him. Söring has plenty of opportunities to speak his mind without being offered a public stage at our expense.

Guise-Rübe now turns to the question of whether Söring should be considered guilty in Germany, given that he was convicted under US law. Perhaps not, Guise-Rübe says, because there may be doubts as to whether US convictions satisfy the standards of German law. In fact, Guise-Rübe says this must be questioned, because American law violates European standards and: “The US legal system is not governed by the rule of law. In my opinion, definitely not.”

We now have an “expert” judgment from a man who has neither studied American criminal law nor ever set foot in an American criminal courtroom – and, as this interview shows – has little understanding of the American criminal justice system and has obvious anti-American tendencies.

If that’s not authoritative, what is?

Guise-Rübe is, of course, largely alone in his view. American criminal judgments are, of course, routinely recognized as lawful and enforceable in Germany. Germany respects American convictions because America is country with a reliable justice system governed by the rule of law, and America recognizes German convictions because Germany is a country with a reliable justice system governed by the rule of law.

Guise-Rübe even seems unaware that the European Court of Human Rights has officially declared: “the machinery of justice … in the United States is in itself neither arbitrary nor unreasonable, but, rather, respects the rule of law and affords not inconsiderable procedural safeguards to the defendant.” And in which case did the Court say this? In Jens Söring’s own case before that Court, Soering v. United Kingdom.

Conclusion

This interview has to be one of most extraordinary documents the Söring case has ever generated, and it’s generated a lot of them. Here we have a German judge who has never studied American criminal law or criminal procedure. He’s never been in an American courtroom. He’s never studied Virginia or federal criminal law.

And yet he is willing to attack this system – which he presumably knows only through television and hearsay and newspaper articles – as ignoring the “rule of law”. He caricatures American criminal-court judges as monsters who “often” – that is his word, “often” – conspire to frame innocent people so they can tell voters they’re “tough on crime”. He says American prisons offer no therapy, no education, and no rehabilitation, ignoring literally thousands of laws and programs and initiatives nationwide which do just that. He says American life sentences mean people always die in prison, even though murderers serve an average of 15 years in prison – not so different from Germany.

These are not the views of an experienced, thoughtful, fair-minded person. They are the distorted half-knowledge of someone who is obviously deeply prejudiced against American law, and very likely American society as well. What’s also depressing about Guise-Rübe’s comments is that they’re so shallow and mediocre. I have heard all these arguments from half-sozzled construction workers and shooting-club members at the Stammtisch (local’s table in a pub).

And as for Söring case? Well, on the one side, we have the jury, the trial judge William Sweeney, Ricky Gardner, Terry Wright, Kenneth Beever, dozens of other investigators, lab techs, and experts. Plus of course the dozens of experienced American appeals-court judges who carefully reviewed the case and found not a single error. And the Virginia Board of Paroles, which investigated every one of Söring’s claims over decades found not a single one persuasive. Not one. Söring’s conviction was based on overwhelming evidence collected by disciplined, motivated professionals, and carefully reviewed by courts at the state and federal level.

And what does Ralph Guise-Rübe say to all of this? “Who cares?” He has his opinion, based on listening to Jens Söring complain and reading some bits of a very long record. And that seems to be enough for him. All those jurors and judges were just…wrong.

This interview, finally, says more about Guise-Rübe than it does about Söring or about America. Guise-Rübe’s views, in my view, reflect alarming arrogance and complacency. He appears willing to recite tired anti-American cliches instead of engaging in reasoned, independent, fact-based analysis.

Let me conclude on positive note. I have met hundreds of German (also American) judges, including a former President of the German Federal Constitutional Court, and helped educated dozens of future judges in my 15 years teaching in a German law school. The overwhelming majority of these men and women were thoughtful, principled, honest professionals doing their best to apply the law with justice and compassion. Germany selects its judges using different methods than the USA, Britain, or France, but its method has its own logic and generally achieves reliable results. The German justice system justly prides itself on its international reputation for fairness and efficiency.

I myself have appeared as a defendant before a German court – the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt – when Jens Söring sued me for libel. The three judges knew the case well, asked probing, well-informed questions, and then came to the right result (as I see it) – everything I had written was covered by freedom of speech.

That is why this interview with Judge Guise-Rübe is so disheartening. People may get the idea that it’s routine for German judges to casually denounce foreign legal systems they do not understand, without getting their facts right. Nothing could be further from the truth. Judge Guise-Rübe is, fortunately, an outlier. No other German judge I know would have spouted these bitter, unfounded attacks.

I hope Judge Guise-Rübe will give this honest critique some thought, and apologize for this interview. I hope he will also ensure that Jens Söring’s presentation this coming Tuesday will be balanced by a much-needed contrary perspective. Well, no matter what his decision is, I’ll do my part.