Last update - 00:00 14/11/2006
Fast-track trials may serve up swift justice
By Roni Singer-Heruti
About half a year ago, in the heat of an argument, a woman threatened her husband that she would have him "taken care of" and then complain to the police that he had attacked her.
The husband hastened to complain to the police about his wife, who was questioned on suspicion of threatening her husband. The police decided to indict her. Last Thursday the indictment was read out in Rishon Letzion's Magistrate's Court. However, a few hours later, it was revoked.
The retraction was made possible by a special pretrial procedure that was introduced a few years ago by the Central District Police and which will be extended to all the courts in the country in January.
"This is a criminal pretrial procedure. The parties' representatives meet on the day the indictment is read in court and try to reach an agreement about the defendant's penalty, to avoid a trial," says Chief Superintendent Dado Zamir, head prosecutor in the Central District Police.
"Our figures show that 90 percent of the indictments we present ended with pretrial plea bargains," he says.
The police hold pretrial plea bargain meetings twice a week.
Pretrial hearings
Last Thursday dozens crowded into the Rishon Letzion Magistrate's Court, all of them summoned for indictment readings. Police prosecutor, attorney Yoki Lopez, sat in a small room and held pretrial hearings with public and private defenders.
Lopez discussed with attorneys Ravit Gur and Amihai Asnafi the break in charges filed against their two clients. After negotiating over the quality of the police's evidence and after Asnafi noted that his client had no prior criminal record, the sides agreed on a conditional sentence. "Perhaps we'll also agree to a fine," said Gur.
Then the two sides presented the agreement to the magistrate. "The court is not obliged to accept the bargain, but in most cases it does," says Zamir.
Public defense attorney Dorit Giterman deals with an average of 15 out of 50 defendants' files a day. "First, I usually have a 20 minute meeting with the defendant. We go over the file, I explain to him what the evidence against him is along with its implications. I hear his version, then meet the police prosecution representative to present the defendant's side to him," she says.
"Often the prosecutor is convinced by the defendant's arguments and the evidence he has to revoke the indictment or there is an agreement on some rehabilitation procedure or other," says Giterman. Lopez says, "I have judiciary-like authority.
"On the other hand, sometimes a defendant insists he did nothing, denies the charges and won't hear of a bargain. In this case, we go to the magistrate and say we did not reach an agreement. The case is then transferred for trial in another court," she says.
Zamir says the system is intended as a more efficient way to deal with cases.
"The indictment is presented immediately and so is the punishment. In this way the victim also feels that things are being taken care of. However, we're not deluding ourselves, we know that in a normal trial the defendant would probably receive a harsher sentence."
The Bar Association is not too thrilled with the pretrial system. "It's a system of wholesale debates over indictments, which damages the cause of justice," says attorney Rahel Toren, chairman of the criminal forum in the Bar Association. "Every defendant deserves a proper trial, and when you have dozens of discussions a day it resembles the world of trade rather than dealing with the law."
Attorneys Gur and Asnafi agree that "it's an exhausting procedure that resembles a marketplace."
"The court's interest is to reduce the number of cases, so it often applies pressure on the parties to end a case swiftly," says Toren.
Gur says she herself has met with judges' demands to meet the prosecutor "half way" and not to insist on going to trial.
However, Giterman says she never encountered such pressure and when a defendant demands a trial, the court accepts it.
The pretrial procedure's main advantage, as far as the public defense is concerned, is that every defendant receives a lawyer's representation.
"These arrangements are desirable as far as we're concerned," says Chief Public Defender Inbal Rubinstein. "Our studies show this is not a conveyer belt system, and there are no fundamental differences between the outcome of ordinary trials and the outcome of these plea bargains. Except that in the pretrial system, there appears to be more of a tendency to be lenient with the defendants and send them to rehabilitation programs."
The public defenders say the defendants are also generally satisfied with the procedure.
"They often say to me they only want to reach a settlement and end the whole thing," says Giterman.