German newspapers call it the Deal. The law calls it Verständigung, an understanding. Since a law of 29 July 2009, Section 257c of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows a criminal court to reach an agreement with the parties on the course and outcome of a trial. The agreement may cover the sentence. It may not cover guilt: Der Schuldspruch sowie Maßregeln der Besserung und Sicherung dürfen nicht Gegenstand einer Verständigung sein. The verdict of guilt and measures of correction and prevention may not be part of an agreement. The court’s duty to find the truth also remains. On 19 March 2013, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the law was not unconstitutional, at least for now, and that informal agreements outside it are not permitted. The court wrote: Zentrales Anliegen des Strafprozesses ist die Ermittlung des wahren Sachverhalts. The central concern of a criminal trial is to find the true facts.
Practice did not always follow. For a study presented to the court in 2012, Karsten Altenhain surveyed 330 judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers in North Rhine-Westphalia. Almost 60 percent of the judges said that they made most of their agreements without the record the law requires.