The Public Defender's Office asked Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann Tuesday to change the law to make it harder to convict criminals. Currently, virtually every person on trial in Israel for criminal offenses is found guilty.
The National Public Defender, Attorney Inbal Rubinstein, and her deputy, Dr. Yoav Sapir, wrote that "we are as far as we can be from a situation in which the system does everything it can to prevent the conviction of innocents." Only two out of 1,000 cases end with a "not guilty" verdict in Israel.
The public attorneys suggest that criminals be tried by two-judge panels and that guilty verdicts only be possible if both judges agree. A law to this effect was once drafted by then-MK Prof. Amnon Rubinstein and passed the Knesset in a preliminary reading, but never went any further.
The system: plea bargains
The most common way the Israeli court system deals with criminal cases that are not clear-cut is through plea-bargains. The accused is often advised that his chances of acquittal are virtually nonexistent, and i
Proponents of the system claim that guilt or innocence is determined effectively by the police and the prosecution.
s expected to sign a plea bargain with a reduced sentence instead of fighting to clear his name.
Proponents of the system claim that the determination of guilt or innocence is carried out effectively at the initial stages of the criminal process, during the police investigation and in the examination of the case by the prosecution. It is assumed that cases which reach the court are those in which guilt has been clearly determined. Another explanation given for the plea-bargain system is that it saves the understaffed courts time and money.
The immediate reason for the attorneys' letter was the latest development in the 14-year-old case of the rape and murder of Henit Kikos, a resident of Ofakim in the Negev. Kikos disappeared on June 10, 1993, and her body was found some time later. Sliman El-Abid, a resident of the Bedouin town Rahat, was arrested and charged with the crime after confessing to a police agent planted in his cell.
There was not a unanimous decision in his trial which reached the Supreme Court twice, and there has been an ongoing legal and public dispute about El-Abid's guilt.
"Our experience teaches us that in cases in which a person is convicted by a majority of opinions [as opposed to a unanimous decision – ed.] … leave a heavy feeling of uncertainty regarding the convicted person's guilt," the public defense lawyers wrote. "We think that the Israeli court system cannot live with this lack of certainty regarding the danger that an innocent person will go to jail. The public's trust in the court system is shaken." They quote from the great Jewish sage Maimonides, who wrote "it is better and more desirable that 1,000 sinners be set free, than to kill one innocent man a single time."