The Soviet sector, informally called East Berlin, was considered by East Germany, then a member of the Warsaw Pact, to be part of its territory and in fact its capital, and the American, French, and British Sectors, collectively called West Berlin, were in some respects governed as if they were a part of West Germany, a member of NATO.
In particular, the judgeship of the United States Court for Berlin was vacant except during the trial over which Judge Stern presided.
On 30 August 1978, Hans Detlef Alexander Tiede and Ingrid Ruske, both East Germans, used a starting pistol (not an actual gun) to hijack a Polish passenger aircraft (LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165) from Gdańsk bound for East Berlin's Schönefeld Airport and diverted it instead to the U.S. Air Force base at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin.
Over the prosecutor's objections, Judge Stern ruled that the defendants were entitled to be tried by a jury, a procedure abolished in Germany in 1924.
The case against Tiede's co-defendant Ingrid Ruske was dismissed because she had not been notified of her Miranda rights before signing a confession.