German to English Art/Literary Law (general) modern criminal law compared with Roman

This comes from a text in which the author examines an important historical trial, and often ends the chapter with a comparable modern situation.

In this case, the Roman situation is the practice of pardoning repentants, who turned from Christianity back to traditional pagan practices. The sentence in question is the second. I have skipped the historical section on 11-14th C Spain and Protugal. The sentence prior to my problem concerns 13th century Portugal, so it doesn't seem that applicaple.

Die Begnadigung schlicht Reuiger, bei gemeinen Verbrechen ebenso unanwendbar, blieb noch länger in Kraft. ... Vergleichbar heute ist weniger der **Rücktritt** vom Versuch eines Verbrechens durch tätige Reue, da diese nur bei lediglich versuchten Verbrechen entlastet. Eine bessere Parallele ist die Strafaussetzung zur Bewährung, die freilich von vornherein nur bedingt ausgesprochen und bei Rückfall widerrufen wird; dann wird die alte Strafe doch vollstreckt und es kommt eine weitere, wegen der Rückfalltat.

So far I have:
The pardoning of simple repentant offenders, likewise inapplicable for common criminals, retained its power for a longer period. ... A less applicable parallel can be found in the person who was about to commit a crime, which he or she had planned in advance, but suddenly refused to carry out due to active remorse. Yet this exonerates only in cases of attempted offenses. A closer parallel [to Pliny’s practice of pardoning repentant Christians] is the suspension of a sentence through probation, which, admittedly, can only be conditionally imposed, meaning that the pardon is revoked in the case of recidivism. In the latter case (that is, if the repentant offends again), the original punishment is imposed, as well as a more severe penalty due to relapsing

Because of the nature of the text and the audience, it is more important that the sense of the original be preserved than that the translation be as literally as close to the original as possible.

tia/vDiV