The Supreme Court accepted the State Attorney's Office's appeal and convicted a teenager, who was about 16 and a half years old at the time of the incident, of the crime of causing death by negligence.
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This is an incident that occurred 4 years ago on Purim on Shivtei Yisrael Street in Jerusalem, during which dozens of rioters sought to attack an Arab. One of the drivers who happened to be on the scene became the target of the rioters. After stones, bottles and shouts of "Arab, Arab, we will kill him" were thrown at him.
The severe attack led to the driver, in a desperate attempt to escape the scene, running over an innocent passerby to death.
In the district court, the teenager was convicted of serious offenses, but not of negligent death. The judges ruled that the driver chose his own path.
In the appeal filed by the Criminal Division of the State Attorney's Office, it was claimed that the boy took an active and substantial part in the incident, threw stones at the vehicle, broke its mirrors and windows, and tried to break into it - thereby taking an unreasonable, serious and socially valueless risk.
According to the prosecution, this is a case of high-level criminal negligence, exceeding reasonable behavior, which imposes on the young man a duty of care towards those present at the scene - and in particular towards an innocent pedestrian who died.
The prosecution further argued that there was a full causal connection - factual and legal - between the minor's actions and the fatal outcome. This is because, under the circumstances, a reasonable person could and should have expected that the driver would act out of extreme distress, and even lose his temper.
The prosecution emphasized that the driver did not act with full autonomy, but under a brutal, violent and racist attack, and that this was not extreme or detached behavior - but rather an expected response to the attack.
The Supreme Court accepted the prosecution's arguments and ruled: "When a person attacks another person, it is expected that the victim will try to defend his life and flee the scene. In the circumstances of a violent lynching with multiple participants - not at all. This is a situation in which a person seeks to flee for his life, literally. In such a cruel situation, the person being attacked is subject to an extremely intense system of pressures, which naturally affects his way of acting... The fact that a bystander was injured during the course of events - and even died - was not unexpected from a normative point of view.""
Judges Barak-Erez, Mintz and Kabub unanimously ruled that the boy could and should have foreseen the consequences.
Now that the boy is also convicted of negligent homicide, the case returns to the district court for a new sentence.
The case in the Jerusalem District Court was handled by Attorney Anat Arosi-Cohen of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office.
