What's more dangerous, a handgun or a car? A car, of course. In Israel, hundreds of people are killed every year in road accidents, while only a handful are killed by gunshots.
Nonetheless, Israeli courts impose tougher sentences on a person who killed with a gun than on a person who used his car to kill someone. Our judges tend to assume that deaths resulting from road accidents are prompted by negligence, while handguns are deliberately used in order to kill.
Lethal Accident
ATV driver who killed girl on Yom Kippur gets 9 years / Sharon Roffe-Ofir
Nazareth Court sentences Assad Shibli, who ran over and killed nine-year-old Tal Zino of Kfar Tavor on Yom Kippur Eve of 2007, to nine years in jail. He is also ordered to pay NIS 50,000 in damages. Girl's family: Justice hasn't been done
However, this rule does not apply to the case of the State of Israel against Assad Shibli. The judge, Yitzhak Cohen, who serves as the deputy president of the Nazareth District Court, ruled earlier this week that Shibli "used his ATV as a weapon" while killing nine-year-old Tal Zino in Kfar Tavor two years ago during Yom Kippur.
Indeed, the judge accepted the prosecutor's argument that this case cannot be treated as a regular road accident.
According to the verdict, Shibli "drove at high speed into a crowd, in a crowded site, and drove straight without changing his direction and without slowing down at all, towards people who signaled to him to stop or slow down, until he hit Tal." Hence, ruled the judge, this terrible act marks the "almost gravest case" of killing while driving.
As we know, the maximal punishment for manslaughter is 20 years in prison. As the judge ruled that this act constituted the "almost gravest case" of killing, one could expect him to send Shibli to the almost maximal term in prison. Moreover, the accused was convicted of nine other offences, including driving while his license was suspended and leaving the site of the accident without offering to help the victim.
However, in the bottom line Shibli only got nine years in prison. After a third of it will be rescinded for good behavior, he will be released in six years.
The judge explained that the accused is young and had no previous convictions, but Tal Zino was also young and had no previous convictions. Why did the court go easy on the person who killed her so recklessly?
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