5.  The first applicant is the widow and the second applicant is the son of the late John Demjanjuk. They were born in 1925 and 1965, respectively, and live in Ohio, the United States of America.
6.  On 12 May 2011 the Munich Regional Court II, after 91 days of trial, convicted John Demjanjuk on 16 counts as an accessory to the murder of at least 28,060 persons. It found it established that he had, in his capacity as a guard in the Sobibór extermination camp, aided and abetted the systematic murder of persons who had been deported to the said camp in 16 convoys between 27 March 1943 and September 1943. It sentenced him to a total of five years’ imprisonment for these crimes. The judgment ran to 220 pages plus appendices.
7.  Both the accused and the public prosecutor filed appeals on points of law against that judgment. Defence counsel submitted a brief containing the grounds for the appeal on points of law in November 2011 and subsequently submitted four additional briefs, the last of which was received by the Regional Court on 12 January 2012. On 24 February 2012, the public prosecutor’s office instructed that the file, along with the submissions by the public prosecutor’s office in response to the defence counsel’s submissions, be transferred to the Federal Court of Justice, which was competent to examine the appeal on points of law.
8.  John Demjanjuk died on 17 March 2012. At that time, the Federal Court of Justice had not yet received the case file.
9.  By decision of 5 April 2012 the Munich Regional Court II discontinued the proceedings in accordance with Article 206a § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure due to the death of the accused (see paragraph 14 below). In that same decision, relying on Article 467 § 3, second sentence, number 2 of the Code (see paragraph 15 below), it ruled that the accused’s necessary expenses were not to be borne by the treasury. The Regional Court reasoned as follows:
“... The accused had been convicted on 16 counts as an accessory to murder after 91 days of trial with a comprehensive taking of evidence. The conviction was based on a thorough examination of the evidence as to the facts and an assessment of all relevant legal aspects. Even though the conviction could not become final in the absence of a decision on the appeal on points of law, Article 467 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure did not apply.
The procedural impediment occurred after the judgment convicting the applicant had been handed down. The duration of the trial, which had lasted for almost one and a half years, was attributable, to a significant degree, to the time-consuming strategy pursued by the defence. The defence had made excessive use of their right to make statements under Article 257 § 2 of the Code, often repeating arguments already made several times, and had filed around 500 applications for the taking of evidence, a large number of which had been directed at evidence that had either already been taken or that was impossible to obtain, such as the examination of deceased persons. Likewise, the defence had filed more than twenty complaints alleging bias with regard to each of the professional judges sitting on the case, again often repeating arguments and considerations that had already been ruled on. It would have been possible to conclude the trial within a few months, while fully respecting defence rights, if the defence had exercised its procedural rights in a targeted, structured and technical manner.
It would thus have been possible to conclude the proceedings, with a final verdict, during the lifetime of the accused. Against this backdrop, it is not equitable, even in the absence of a conclusive finding of guilt, in the context of the discretionary decision to be made, to order that the accused’s necessary expenses be reimbursed by the treasury. ...”
10.  Counsel for the late accused filed an immediate appeal against the Regional Court’s decision of 5 April 2012. He submitted, inter alia, that the decision not to reimburse the accused’s necessary expenses, and its reasoning, breached the presumption of innocence guaranteed by Article 6 § 2 of the Convention. On 17 April 2012 counsel submitted powers of attorney from the applicants in the present case.
11.  On 4 October 2012 the Munich Court of Appeal dismissed the immediate appeal as inadmissible due to a lack of standing. The procedural status as an accused in criminal proceedings was personal in nature and could not be transferred, including by way of inheritance. In respect of the late accused, it had ceased because of his death. The Court of Appeal went on to state that the immediate appeal was, in addition, ill-founded. Article 6 § 2 of the Convention had not been breached. Having regard to the Court’s judgment in the case of Nölkenbockhoff v. Germany, 25 August 1987, Series A no. 123, it considered that the decision not to reimburse the late accused’s necessary expenses did not breach that provision, as it did not contain a finding of guilt, which the decision itself explicitly stated. It was permissible, in view of the establishment of the late accused’s guilt by the trial court, to find that there continued to be, at the time the proceedings were discontinued, a state of suspicion against the late accused, and to apply Article 467 § 3, second sentence, number 2, of the Code of Criminal Procedure on that basis.
12.  On 12 October 2012 counsel filed a complaint to be heard, which the Court of Appeal dismissed as ill-founded on 15 November 2012.
13.  On 18 December 2014 the Federal Constitutional Court declined to consider the applicants’ constitutional complaint (no. 2 BvR 2397/12), without providing reasons.