The decree contains no specification that the court of appeal, or court of retrial, or its president can order a stay of execution of a sentence. The legislator believed he could abstain from such a specification, because the attorney general will see to it in the way of administration that such a stay is brought about at the suggestion of the president. It is not necessary that everything should be ordered in the way of legislation that can be safeguarded in the way of administration.
g. Legal means—The public prosecutor can “lodge an appeal against sentences passed by the judge of a local court with the district court of appeal. The period of time within which an appeal is to be lodged is 2 weeks.” (Number VI) The extension of the time limit is explained not only by the poor rail and postal communications which are sometimes even worse in the Incorporated Eastern Territories than in other parts of the Reich. Its explanation is to be found above all in the fact that it is also the duty of the public prosecutor to examine whether an appeal is to be lodged on behalf of the condemned person. The condemned person will quite often suggest this to him. The public prosecutor will then require a certain amount of time in order to examine whether the new statements and evidence, which the defendant has perhaps given him when he suggested such an appeal. For that the summary examination of evidence offered will often be necessary and will take a few days. Just when the public prosecutor is confronted with the question whether he is to lodge an appeal on behalf of the condemned person he will do well to hold himself more than ever aloof from the bad custom of lodging an appeal “as a precaution.” For in this case he would raise false hopes and in addition, even if he does not subsequently maintain the appeal, would in the eyes of the condemned divest the judgment of some of its authority. He must therefore have time for a summary examination. From this resulted the extension of the time limit for the lodging of an appeal.
- TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NG-665
- PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 346
SUPPLEMENTARY DECREE, 31 JANUARY 1942, CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION OF PENAL JUSTICE AGAINST POLES AND JEWS IN THE INCORPORATED EASTERN TERRITORIES
1942 REICHSGESETZBLATT, PART I, PAGE 52
Pursuant to article XVII of the decree concerning the Administration of Penal Justice against Poles and Jews in the Incorporated Eastern Territories of 4 December 1941[351] (Reichsgesetzblatt Part I, page 759), the following is decreed:
Article I
Articles I to III of the decree of 4 December 1941 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 759) may be equally applied with the consent of the public prosecutor to offenses committed before the decree came into force.
Article II
(1) The court may rule in every case that Poles and Jews be interrogated by a commissioned or requested judge; article 251, paragraph 2, of the Reich Code of Criminal Procedure and article 252, paragraph 3, of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure will remain unchanged.