Field Notes

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Da Costa-fallet

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Catrine da Costa was killed in Stockholm in 1984 and her dismembered body was found that summer. Two doctors, known in the press as allmänläkaren and obducenten, were prosecuted for the killing amid intense media attention.

In 1988 Stockholms tingsrätt acquitted both men of murder. The court nevertheless wrote in its reasons that it was established beyond reasonable doubt that the doctors had dismembered the body, a separate offence whose two-year limitation period had already expired. The operative judgment was an acquittal; the reasons contained a finding of guilt for an offence that was never adjudicated.

That construction left no remedy. Only the operative judgment can be appealed, and a fully acquitted person has nothing to appeal. Resning targets convictions, so there was no conviction to reopen. The domskäl finding still cost both men their medical licences and careers, and repeated attempts at review in the administrative courts failed across the following decades. In 2026 the state granted each doctor SEK 2 million in ex gratia compensation, a payment made without conceding legal error, after decades of campaigning and public argument that Sweden needs an independent criminal-cases review commission.

The case matters in Rättssäkerhet in Swedish criminal cases because it shows a structural gap rather than a misjudged piece of evidence: a court can attach a career-destroying factual finding to a decision no procedure can test, appeal, or correct.

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