Case Number

CrimA 118/53

Date Decided

2-24-1956

Decision Type

Appellate

Document Type

Full Opinion

Abstract

The appellant was charged under section 214(b) of the Criminal Code Ordinance, 1936, with the murder of one Meir Shifman. He was employed at the Ata textile works in the north of Israel in the year 1951. On December 26, 1951, he went to work taking a loaded revolver with him. At 9.30 a.m. he went towards a fellow employee, with whom he had at one time been friendly, one Luba Kreiner, and fired two shots at her which struck her in the right arm. She tried to run away from the appellant, but tripped up and fell. Shifman, a member of the workers' committee, seeing what had happened threw himself face down on the floor of the works but the appellant came up to him, fired two shots into his head, and killed him. After firing these two shots, he reloaded his revolver, fired further shots at Kreiner and at other persons and then left the place where he had been working.

The appellant was arrested on the following day and charged with the murder of Shifman and with the attempted murder of Kreiner and another. After the charge had been read to him and he had been warned that he need not say anything but what he did say might be used at his trial, he admitted that he was the man who had done the acts that had occurred at the Ata works, one day previously.

At the trial his defence was that he was not of sound mind when he fired the shots at Shifman and he relied upon the M'Naghten Rules as set out in section 14 of the Criminal Code Ordinance, 1936.

The appellant was examined by a number of medical experts who came to the conclusion that he was a paranoiac, that he knew what he was doing and knew that what he was doing was wrong, but after he had fired the first shots he was in a state of trance and that at the moment when he fired at Shifman and thereafter he acted in a trance.

The District Court held that the defence set up under the M'Naghten Rules must, in the light of the medical expert evidence, fail and was further of the opinion, in the light of the statements made by the appellant the day following the killing, that he was not in a state of trance at the time he fired at Shifman. As, however, the element of preparation had not been established he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The appellant appealed against the conviction and sentence. The Attorney-General cross-appealed.

Held: by a majority that the appeal be allowed and that the cross-appeal be dismissed.

Per Agranat J., the M'Naghten Rules as set out in section 14 of the Criminal Code Ordinance did not provide a defence in the present case but that section 14 did not exhaust the rights of a paranoiac. Such a person may also rely on section 11 of the Ordinance which lays down that a person shall not be criminally liable for any act or omission which occurred without the exercise of his will. As in the present case the appellant was not capable of exercising any will, he had a good defence to the charge of murder.

Per Silberg J., the court below was wrong in refusing to accept the unanimous and uncontradicted evidence of all the medical experts that at the time of the shooting at and killing of Shifman, the appellant was in a state of trance. The court of first instance was not entitled to refuse to accept this evidence merely on its own belief that certain actions of the appellant at the time of the shooting, of which the experts were aware, seemed to negative their conclusion. Accordingly, as the only evidence before the court was that the appellant was in a state of trance at the time when he fired the fatal shots at Shifman, it could not be said that he knew what he was doing or knew that what he was doing was wrong. The M'Naghten Rules as set out in section 14 of the Criminal Code Ordinance therefore applied, and the appellant had a good defence to the charge of murder.

Per Goitein J., on the medical evidence the M'Naghten Rules did not apply and the court below was entitled to rely upon the statements made one day after the killing by the appellant himself, from which it might be inferred, and the court of first instance was entitled to infer, that the appellant was not in a state of trance when he fired the shots which killed Shifman. It was not for the appellate court to find facts different from those found by the court of first instance when the findings of the judges of that court were based on an appreciation of the evidence. Accordingly the appellant knew what he was doing at the time he fired the shots and knew that it was wrong to fire them. As, at the time, he was not in a state of trance, section 14 of the Criminal Code Ordinance offered him no defence and since, however, the element of preparation had not been proved, the court below was right in finding him guilty of manslaughter.

Keywords

Criminal Law -- Conviction, Criminal Law -- Criminal responsibility

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