Nine years ago a minor was convicted of murder after shooting at a bus and causing the death of a student • Due to the disqualification of evidence in another proceeding, Judge Handel said: "Real fear of miscarriage of justice"
Nine years after being convicted - he will be tried again
Photography:
Oren Ben Hakon - Archive
Supreme Court Justice Zvi Handel ordered a retrial for a man convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
According to the indictment in which the same man was convicted nine years ago in the Nazareth District Court, when he was a minor he fired about ten shots at a bus carrying school students, causing the death of one of them and the serious injury of another.
The conviction was also based on confessions made by another student to the police.
But in another proceeding, the same student wins and his confessions to the police are rejected.
Following this, a request was made for a retrial on the grounds that the conviction based on the evidence that was rejected is a miscarriage of justice.
According to the court's ruling, the disqualification of the student's confessions is a new fact, which refers to a different legal conclusion than the one on which the conviction was based.
The development requires an examination of the evidence on which the conviction is based.
Judge Handel assessed that since this was not new evidence but a legal conclusion, it was necessary to hold a retrial in the format of returning the hearing to the Supreme Court, which would hear the case as in a criminal appeal.
It should be noted that there are differences between the evidentiary infrastructure that led to the conviction and the one that led to the acquittal of the additional student.
The appellate court, which previously upheld the applicant's conviction, stated that "it is close to the conclusion that even without giving evidentiary weight to the additional student's version, the applicant could have been convicted."
The court did not rule on this question, and opened the door to a different conclusion.
In the judgment, Judge Handel wrote: "It seems, therefore, that the circumstances of the case before me may raise a real fear of miscarriage of justice, and it is appropriate to find out the consequences of disqualifying the member, along with additional evidence, in relation to the applicant's conviction." "However, for the purpose of clarifying the matter, I believe that returning the case to the district court, and reopening it for the hearing of all the evidence once again is not the right way in my eyes in the concrete case."
