Enemies - Right or Justice?

In an on-screen experiment entitled “Enemies”, a group of parents, police officers, and legal experts is invited to a movie theatre in Munich to watch two films. The first one, “Against Time”, is told from the perspective of the investigator and the second, “The Confession”, follows the public defender. Afterwards, the audience votes on a single question: Was the acquittal just? Bestselling author Ferdinand von Schirach and Elisa Hoven, a criminal law professor at the University of Leipzig, guide viewers through the documentary.
 
Genuine kidnapping cases are used as an example to show that the question asked is not merely abstract but plays a crucial role in real life. The two films are based on the cases of Jakob von Metzler, the son of a banker from Frankfurt who was kidnapped and killed as a child, and Richard Oetker. In 1976, his kidnapper kept him imprisoned in a box and tortured him with electric shocks. Oetker, now a businessman, has suffered from mobility problems ever since. He relives the ordeal and explains his views concerning the treatment of the perpetrator. Additionally, the Riße family recounts their experience of an expedited police investigation in 2015 when their 17-year-old daughter, Anneli-Marie, was kidnapped and killed. In an effort to rescue the girl, the lead investigator disregarded the law and used waterboarding as a method of torture. 

The documentary aims to initiate discussions and poses the existential question: Is an acquittal a just verdict in such a case?