Serious Crimes Case (Nazareth) 22205-06-23 State of Israel v. Dennis Mukin - part 3

The defense case included the testimony of the defendant as well as the testimony of the defendant's brother-in-law, Marcus Daniel Finkelstein.

24. After the parties' evidence was presented to the fullest, the parties summarized their arguments in writing.

It should be noted that initially, in the framework of the defense case, only the defendant's testimony was heard.  After the accuser's written summaries were submitted and before the written defense summaries were submitted, the defendant's counsel asked another defense witness, Marcus Daniel Finkelstein, to testify, despite the stage at which the proceeding is located.  Taking into account the accuser's position, we permitted the hearing of the testimony of this defense witness.  After hearing his testimony, as stated, the parties completed their oral summaries.

The main arguments of the parties will be presented below, according to their summaries.

The main arguments of the accuser in her summaries:

25. In her written summaries, the accuser claimed that she had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant caused the death of the deceased intentionally and that he should be convicted of the crime of murder. She also claimed that she had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the additional offenses attributed to him in the indictment, and therefore he should be convicted of these offenses as well.
26. The accuser noted that an indictment of murder was filed against the defendant, in which it was alleged that the defendant shot the deceased with the intention of causing his death. In addition to this offense, the defendant was charged with a series of other offenses: driving while disqualified, drunk driving, obstruction during interrogation, and willful damage to the vehicle.  According to the defendant's line of defense, the shooting that caused the death of the deceased was caused by a bullet that was emitted during a struggle, and therefore, at most, it was a negligent death.  The accuser clarified that there is no dispute about the very fact that the defendant was the one who fired and caused the death of the deceased.  Similarly, there is no dispute that the defendant arrived at the scene of the murder driving disqualified, drunk and under the influence of drugs.  At the heart of the dispute is the question of the mental element, which is whether the defendant intended to cause the death of the deceased.  According to the accuser, as proved during the hearing of the evidence, not only was the defendant well aware that he had pulled the trigger twice and shot the deceased, but he did so deliberately, out of a clear desire to bring about the death of the deceased.
27. The accuser detailed the sequence of events that preceded, dured, and after the incident that is the subject of the indictment, as indicated by the testimonies heard and the evidence submitted. She also noted that the defense's version throughout the course of the proceedings was that the bullets fired by the defendant at the deceased were unwittingly ejected from his pistol.  According to the defendant, he did not intend to murder the deceased, did not deliberately pull the trigger and did not know that the trigger was accidentally pulled during the struggle.  The problem, the accuser claimed, was that the defendant himself held various lines of defense during his interrogations with the police and changed his version from interrogation to interrogation.
28. According to the accuser, the defendant's version developed and changed over the course of his police interrogations, was inconsistent and illogical, and the number of his versions of the incident was identical to the number of his interrogations. Thus, in his first interrogation, the defendant claimed that he felt threatened by the deceased as soon as he got out of his car, in a manner that gave him a claim of self-defense.  In this context, he claimed that he fired several bullets in the air when the deceased reached him, and later, when the deceased ran back towards his car, the defendant fired two or three more bullets at him in order to neutralize him.  The defendant gave a similar version in a reconstruction conducted with him.  However, the accuser emphasized that at no stage in the reconstruction, or in his first interrogation, did the defendant mention that the deceased said something that made him think that the deceased was about to remove a weapon from the vehicle.
29. The accuser emphasized that there were material details that the defendant refrained from mentioning in his first interrogation and in the reconstruction. Thus, the defendant did not say that he was the one who quickly got out of his car and jumped towards the deceased, pulling out a weapon and immediately firing in the air, and that the meeting point between the two was actually close to the deceased's car, as he admitted in his testimony in court.  The defendant has not yet said that the deceased was not armed with any weapon and that until a later part of the incident, including the stage of the two quarreling along the road, he did not fear for his life at all, as he stated in his later statements.  Moreover, the defendant made no mention of the deceased's death while running back to his car, as he claimed in his second interrogation.  According to the accuser, the defendant belatedly remembered to add this detail in order to justify the shooting at the deceased.
30. The accuser added that in his second interrogation with the police, the defendant changed his version regarding the location and the point in time when he felt threatened to his life by the deceased. Thus, he claimed, contrary to his first interrogation, that he felt threatened by the deceased only after they had fought near the railing on the side of the road and the deceased ran back to his car while threatening his life, so the defendant fired to neutralize the deceased.  The accuser emphasized that this threat on the part of the deceased, which was not mentioned at all in the defendant's first interrogation or even in the reenactment conducted with him on the night of the incident, became the heart of his version in his second interrogation, as a threat that establishes self-defense and justifies shooting the deceased in order to kill him.
31. In his third interrogation, the defendant was presented with the findings of the pathological opinion, which indicate that the deceased was shot from the front and at close range, and not as understood from the video, during his escape to the car and when he was with his back to the defendant. According to the accuser, these findings led to a further change in the defendant's version, according to which the bullets that hit the deceased and caused his death were ejected during the struggle on the side of the road, near the railing.  According to this version, the defendant did not intend to fire the bullets, did not hear the whistles of the bullets that were fired, did not notice them, did not feel the recoiling of the gun, did not notice that he pulled the trigger twice and did not notice when the deceased was hit at point-blank range.
32. According to the accuser, the defendant tried to excuse his actions and conduct during the incident with a variety of excuses, which should be rejected. At the end of the day, in the trial, the defendant merged two claims.  The first was self-defense – regarding the conduct that accompanied the first batch of shots into the air, the second batch of shots into the air, and the fourth and final batch of shots.  The second is the unconscious emission of bullets – as to his conduct regarding the third cluster of shots, that is, the bullets he fired at the deceased and which led to his death.  The defendant's argument in relation to this shooting is that the bullets were discharged by mistake and that he was not aware of it at all and certainly did not intend to kill the deceased at that stage.  According to the accuser's position, the defendant's arguments should be rejected outright, as they are unreliable and inconsistent with the facts of the case, common sense, the law and case law.
33. As to the defendant's claim of self-defense, the accuser referred to the conditions set out in the law and case law, if fulfilled, the defendant would have self-defense. According to the accuser, in the present case none of the aforementioned conditions are met, and certainly not all of them together, as required.
34. As for the first condition, there was no unlawful assault in this case. In this context, the accuser argued that there is no basis for the defendant's claim that the deceased was the one who threatened or attacked the defendant.  Although the defendant tried to give a threatening touch to the deceased's conduct at the beginning of the incident, it appears that the defendant's conduct was much more threatening, as is evident from the testimonies of the eyewitnesses and even from the defendant's own version.  Even if the deceased swore and got out of his car and later even quarreled with the defendant, his conduct at this stage does not amount to an unlawful assault, since his conduct was in response to the actions of the defendant, who started the confrontation and escalated it all the time.  Moreover, the deceased got out of the car after the defendant stood next to him with a weapon drawn, while firing several bullets in the air near his head.  Hence, even if the deceased repelled the defendant at this stage, it is an attempt to repel an armed person who uses a firearm and endangers his safety.
35. As to the second condition, the defendant in this case did not face any tangible danger. In this context, the accuser claimed that the defendant's description of the tangible danger changed drastically during his interrogations.  In his initial version, the defendant claimed that he felt a sense of threat and danger at the very beginning of the incident.  In his second interrogation, he claimed that only at the stage when the deceased retreated to the car, turning his back on the defendant, did the defendant feel danger and threat.  Moreover, the defendant clarified in his interrogations that he did not identify any weapon in the deceased's possession that could have endangered his life, and therefore he did not feel that his life was in danger.  As noted, only in his second interrogation did the defendant claim that the deceased threatened his life.  The defendant's explanation that he was confused after the incident, in order to explain the discrepancies in his versions, is a weak and unacceptable excuse.  According to the accuser, if it were not for the video documenting the incident, the defendant would probably not have changed his version.  Beyond the contradictions in the defendant's version and the fact that the claim of threat on the part of the deceased was a suppressed claim that arose only in the defendant's later version, there is no logic in the defendant's claim that he thought that the deceased ran to the car with the intention of taking out a weapon and shooting him at this late stage of the incident and after the defendant had fired in the air from the very beginning.  Moreover, the defendant's conduct in the incident shows that he did not believe that the deceased was sabotaging, as he claimed, when he was the one who walked in the direction of the deceased and stood next to him.  The defendant's explanations in this context in his cross-examination were very weak and unreliable, and his answers in his interrogation in this context show that he acted as he did because his dignity was violated.
36. As for the third condition, the defendant's act of defense was not carried out only when it was immediately necessary to repel the attack, and did not stop when he was no longer required to defend himself. In this context, the accuser claimed that the defendant used a pistol and fired ten bullets from the beginning of the incident until the end of the incident, at an unarmed person, until the ammunition in the magazine ran out.  The defendant fired his pistol from four separate clusters throughout the incident.  Thus, the defendant fired several bullets into the air as soon as he got out of the vehicle, fired several bullets in the air while standing next to the deceased, who was sitting in the car, fired two bullets at the deceased at point-blank range while the two were fighting near a barricade on the side of the road, bullets that hit the deceased's heart and shoulder, and also fired three bullets aimed at the deceased, who retreated to his car after he had already been shot.  According to the accuser, the shooting was not necessary at all, and if the defendant had controlled his spirit, the death of the deceased would have been prevented, and the defendant's life was not in danger in any case.
37. As for the fourth condition, the deceased did not attack the defendant and the defendant entered the situation with improper behavior. In this context, the accuser argued that the defendant in his improper behavior was fully responsible for the course of the entire incident.  He was the one who jumped out of his car and charged at the deceased, pulled out his pistol for no reason, fired in the air near the deceased's head for no reason, and fired directly and at close range at the deceased, an unarmed man, during the fight.  The accuser emphasized that there was no justification for the defendant's conduct.
38. As for the fifth condition, the deceased did not attack the defendant and the defendant's use of the weapon was clearly unnecessary. In this context, the accuser claimed that the defendant did not lay any evidentiary basis justifying the use of weapons, not by firing into the air, and all the more so by shooting at a person.  In the defendant's case, neither the qualitative necessity test nor the quantitative necessity test is met.  The deceased was unarmed and did nothing that justified the defendant pulling out a pistol at him and firing it in the air, with the intention of killing him, until he ran out of ammunition.  The accuser added that the conditions of necessity require an examination of the potential damage that could have been caused to the defendant.  In our case, it appears that the defendant could not have suffered much damage, when the deceased was not armed and was not equipped with any assault weapon, and such were not even found in his vehicle.
39. As for the sixth condition, there is no proportion between the damage caused to the deceased and the damage that was expected to be caused to the defendant. In this context, the accuser argued that in a situation in which the defendant was armed and used a firearm while the deceased was bare-handed, there is no proportion, as stated, and even this condition is not met.
40. In summary, in the context of the defendant's claim of self-defense, the accuser argued that not one of the conditions set forth in the law and case law for the purpose of formulating self-defense is met. The defendant was in direct contact with the deceased throughout the entire incident.  The defendant confirmed that he did not think that the deceased endangered him for the vast majority of the incident, and that he clearly lied about the only point during the incident about which he claimed that he felt danger and threat, i.e., the point at which the deceased fled to his car while turning his back on the defendant.  It is clear, therefore, that the threatening words that the defendant put in the mouth of the deceased in the last moments of his life are a blatant lie, which the defendant needed because of his desire to establish a claim of self-defense, at the stage when he thought that the deceased had been hit by the bullets fired at him by the defendant while the deceased fled to his car.  Given this gross lie and in the absence of any danger to the defendant's life during the incident, the defendant's claim of self-defense is unfounded, lacks any basis and must be rejected with both hands.
41. The accuser also referred to the defendant's claim that the bullets were discharged. In this context, she elaborated that this argument has two legs.  First, two bullets were fired from the defendant's gun without his intention and hit the deceased.  Second, the defendant did not notice that the two bullets had been fired from his pistol and did not know that he had hit the deceased during the struggle on the road.  According to the accuser, each of the parts of this claim is unfounded in itself and both together are doubly unfounded.  Thus, she emphasized that the defendant's claim that he deliberately fired an entire magazine in a number of firing batches, but that it was precisely the two bullets that caused the death of the deceased that he did not intend to fire and was not aware of their firing (i.e., he did not hear, did not see, and did not notice the recoil), is baseless and must be rejected outright.
42. The accuser testified that the two bullets fired by the defendant at the deceased at point-blank range, while they were arguing near the railing on the side of the road, were fired in the third cluster of shots fired by the defendant in the incident. This was after two rounds of shots in the air and before the last round of shots that the defendant fired at the deceased as he retreated to his car.  As noted, one of the bullets hit the deceased's shoulder and the other pierced his heart and led to his death.  According to her, it is inconceivable that the rest of the clusters of shots carried out by the defendant were done intentionally and that it was precisely the shooting that hit the deceased was done unintentionally, as the defendant claims.  It is also not possible that the defendant did not feel the shooting and that, even more so in a place where the eyewitnesses to the incident, who were at a distance from the defendant and the deceased, saw and heard the shooting.
43. The accuser added that the defendant's attitude toward the death of the deceased proves her claims. Thus, at no stage did the defendant express remorse or sorrow over the death of the deceased, not immediately after the incident, not during his interrogations, during the conduct of the proceeding, or during his testimony in court.  According to her, this is not how a person behaves when bullets were fired from his gun that caused the death of an innocent person.  The fact that even in retrospect the defendant did not succeed in mobilizing the slightest hint of remorse, shows what his intention was and what he wanted when he pulled the trigger.
44. Moreover, the accuser argued that the defendant's own incriminating statements regarding the fatal shooting prove the accuser's claims more than anything else. Immediately after the incident, the defendant spoke with his sister Kristina and with the head of the community's security, Yaniv Ben Shimol.  The defendant's description of the incident to each of them clearly indicates that he knew that he had shot the deceased during the fight on the road, at close range, and hit him.  In this context, the accuser clarified that both Kristina and Yaniv are not in conflict with the defendant and have no motive to get the defendant in trouble.  Moreover.  The defendant himself told the policeman who stopped him shortly after the incident that he fired in the air many times until he finally had to shoot the deceased.  According to the accuser, all of these statements, all of which were made in the moments after the incident and reflect in the most authentic way what happened, prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew very well that he had shot the deceased and hit him at close range with two bullets, and that his version that he did not intend to shoot and did not know how to shoot is false and unfounded.
45. The accuser further argued that the defendant's testimony proved that the truth was not a guiding light for him. The defendant's versions of the incident changed according to his needs, according to the progress of the investigation, and his answers when he testified in court were convoluted and incoherent.  Thus, she argued that the defendant himself admitted that his version in his first interrogation, when he did not know about the existence of the video documenting the incident, does not describe the manner in which things happened.  The defendant tried to blame the cause on the fact that he was confused after the incident.  However, according to the accuser, if it were not for the video documenting the incident, the defendant would never have changed his version, he would not have bothered to "remember" and it would never have been possible to know what happened between the defendant and the deceased.  The accuser added that the defendant even admitted that he minimized and minimized his actions in a way that he thought would benefit him, for example, with regard to the number of bullets he fired at the deceased.
46. The accuser further claimed that many contradictions were found in the defendant's versions, in a variety of different areas, including the amounts of alcohol he drank and his drug consumption habits, which are inconsistent with the findings of the examination conducted on him and with the opinion of Dr. Yaniv Kanfi, which indicates that the defendant is a chronic user. Moreover.  The defendant asked his sister to lie and tell the police that she was the one driving the car at the time of the incident, thus preventing the discovery of the driving offense while he was disqualified.  The accuser further referred to additional contradictions in the defendant's version, arguing that these are only examples and that a careful examination of the details provided by the defendant in each of his interrogations reveals countless contradictions and developments, each time in accordance with the defendant's needs and the manner in which he perceives his own interests.
47. Therefore, the accuser is of the opinion that the defendant's version of the incident should not be accepted, his claims regarding the manner in which the events unfolded should not be accepted, his claim of self-defense and the factual basis on which he is trying to support this claim should not be accepted, and his claim that he did not notice the emissions of the bullets should not be accepted.
48. The accuser also claimed that the prosecution's witnesses, passersby who were at the scene, also do not support the defendant's version and the manner in which he presents the details of the incident. In this context, she noted that these were objective witnesses, passersby who stumbled upon the scene in the incident, and claimed that from their impressions and the way they described the occurrence of the incident, we can learn a great deal about the defendant's conduct and the degree of his guilt.
49. Thus, the accuser referred to the testimony of the prosecution witness Asa Gyari and her descendants. With regard to the inaccuracies found in Giari's testimony, the accuser claimed that many details about which he testified, in the short period of time that he witnessed the incident, before he drove around with his car and left the scene, are supported by additional evidence, such as the video of the incident and even the testimony of the defendant himself.  In light of the above, the accuser is of the opinion that real weight should be given to the testimony of Giari, which correctly describes the beginning of the incident before it was documented in the video and in its first moments, which can also be seen in the video of the incident itself.  The accuser also referred to the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, Tomer and David Haimovitz, and to the testimonies of them.  In light of this, the accuser claimed that the testimonies of the eyewitnesses who witnessed the incident from the sidelines also clearly indicate that this was not an incident of self-defense and the emission of bullets.  The witnesses experienced the defendant as the aggressor figure in the incident and did not describe at all the main event of a terror incident or an event in which the defendant was the one who defended his life.
50. In light of the above, the accuser petitioned to reject the defendant's claims and to convict him of the acts and offenses attributed to him in the indictment.
51. In completing her oral summaries at the hearing on October 22, 2025, the accuser claimed that this was an incident in which the defendant, who was under the influence of drugs and alcohol, reacted in an extreme and manifestly inappropriate manner to a fight on the road over nothing. She also argued that the arguments of the defendant's counsel regarding the defendant's lack of control during the incident were first raised in his written summaries and were not mentioned during the hearing of the evidence.  Thus, throughout the course of the proceeding, the defendant's line of defense was that we were dealing with negligent death at most, when the claim was that the defendant had two bullets, one of which led to the death of the deceased.  Moreover, this argument that the deceased, by his actions, caused the defendant to not control his actions, is not supported by any testimony, nor even by the defendant's own version.  Moreover, even in the course of the witnesses' cross-examinations, the defendant's counsel did not cross-examine the witnesses in this context.  Moreover, the argument of the defendant's counsel in his summaries that this is not a case of entering a situation with improper conduct, should be rejected.  In this context, she emphasized that the defendant fired in the air near the deceased's head at the very beginning of the incident.
52. The accuser further sought to reject the argument of the defendant's counsel in his summaries that the timing of the defendant's deliberate shooting at the deceased's back as he moved away toward his car indicates that he did not intend to shoot him earlier. In this context, she argued that the timing of the shooting actually shows that we are dealing with a direct continuation of the incident, which should be viewed as a single sequence.  Thus, she argued that the incident should not be divided into separate sections, as arguments by the defendant's counsel in his summaries.  According to the accuser, at the stage when the defendant and the deceased struggled over the ground, the defendant made the decision to kill the deceased.  At this point, the defendant initially shot the deceased at close range, and when he did not understand the severity of the injury to the deceased, he continued to shoot at his back in order to complete his work.
53. The accuser emphasized that this was a complete incident, which includes the background to the defendant's arrival at the scene, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, the fact that he was driving while disqualified, and the rest of the data that are in the background of the incident. The incident also includes the defendant's conduct from the beginning to the end of the incident, as well as his reaction to the death of the deceased.  All of these details, together with the defendant's unreliability and the changes in his versions, create a picture of a person who begins the incident hot and agitated, warms up as he goes, makes a decision to kill, shoots at close range, and continues to shoot from a distance.  All of this, in one sequence.  According to the accuser's position, the defendant made the decision to kill the deceased while struggling with the deceased on the ground, until he fired two bullets at the deceased at point-blank range.
54. The accuser referred to the argument of the defendant's counsel that if the defendant had known that he had shot the deceased during the struggle on the ground, he would have relied on it already in his first police interrogation, since this would have benefited his defense. According to this argument, the very fact that the defendant did not claim this testifies that he believed that the fatal shot was fired at the deceased's back when he moved away from his car, and shows that the defendant was indeed unaware of the shooting of the deceased on the ground during the struggle.  In this context, the accuser claimed that at that stage, when the defendant believed that he had not harmed the deceased while they were on the ground in any case, he chose not to disclose to the investigators that he had shot the deceased at such close range.  According to her, this is also consistent with the fact that the defendant tried to minimize the number of bullets fired.
55. The accuser further argued that the defendant's claim that he thought it was a terror attack and acted to neutralize the deceased, whom he mistakenly thought to be a terrorist, is inconsistent with the defendant's conduct in the incident, as well as with what he said in his interrogations.