אין דין אך יש דיין

A man tries to avoid payment while leaving a parking lot. He gets into an altercation with the attendent, who tries to stop him by blocking his car with her body. The man accelerates and runs her over. She is bruised, and amazed, hangs on to what she can—the hood of the car, crying out for him to stop. The man keeps driving out of the parking lot, and turns to a main road. Losing her balance, the attendent falls off the car in the middle of the road and passes out.

Luckily, she is hit by no more cars and survives. This happened on the first day of 2006. For some reason, an order was issued preventing the identities of the assailant and the parking attendant from being revealed. The criminal case is brought before Judge Moshe Drori, whose verdict in the matter of the State vs. John Doe I find outrageous. Here are his opening words, in my rough translation:

1. John Doe admits to performing actions, which are an offense: in the opinion on the State, a certain offense; and in that of the defendant, a different one, lesser in severity.

   Is there justification for a conviction, and if so, under which offense, and is it possible to suffice in determining that this John Doe has done something prohibited by law, without his conviction?

   Is there room to consider the damage about to be inflicted on this person following a conviction (his inability to be admitted as candidate for Dayan [A Rabbinic Judge under Beth Din, a religious judiciary body. —GY], and so not be able to hold office as Dayan), and thus, can it be sufficient to decree the doing of the prohibited act, without a conviction?

   In the course of considering between the various options of conviction or nonconviction, should weight be given, and if so, what weight, to the fact that the complainant has made amends with the defendant during the court hearing, that the defendant has apologized, promised to compensate the complainant, and that she has announced—to the court—her forgiveness to the defendant?

   What is the meaning, if it even exists, to the prosecutor's announcement that some two weeks after amends were made, the complainant told the prosecutor that she, the complainant, had not done the amends with a whole heart, despite the impression that the court got, which is recorded the the protocol, that sincere and complete amends were made?

2. These questions are at the center of this verdict.

   — Peh 002003/06

To paraphrase, the judge is asking "though a crime has been committed, can we wave it away?". About 300 pages follow in which the judge convinces himself that the answer is affirmative.

Lest we forget, "at the center of this verdict" should actually be the facts of the case, the damage done to the complainant, and the criminality of the actions. I am not a lawyer nor any kind of legal expert, but it seems to me this is a criminal case of fairly aggravated assault; that the defendant had willfully hurt the complainant; that through his intentional actions brought her very close indeed to a gruesome and violent death. The court cannot but convict, and having convicted, sentence by law to at least the minimum penalty. But the court — Moshe Drori — has decided disgracefully:

558. I have determined that the defendant has performed the actions detailed in the revised indictment.

559. I do not convict the defendant.

[Emphasis in the original. Here follow punishments to the unconvicted defendant, including the impounding of his car, cancellation of his driver's license for 4 years, 10,000 ILS damages (about 2500 USD) awarded to the complainant, and 180 hours of community service. —GY]

Moshe Drori in article 559 is saying

I do not perform my duty as a judge.

For this, he should be held in contempt, and be relieved of these duties.

I have left out many additional sociological, cultural, and political matters that are going on in this case. I hope you will be able to find them out even if you can't read Hebrew and the blogstorm surrounding them. Many of them, to me, make Drori seem even less fit to act as a judge of an Israeli court. But, as they say, dayeynu.