12-34-56-78 Chekhov v. State of Israel, P.D. 51 (2)
The main points of the indictment
- The appellant is a kindergarten teacher who has been caring for young children for many years. In the school year that began in September 2020, 29 young children were registered in the kindergarten that the appellant managed – from toddlers in their early years to children at the age of three (hereinafter: the kindergarten and the kindergarten children, respectively). It should be clarified that not all of the kindergarten children were mentioned in the indictment). On October 6, 2021, an indictment was filed against the appellant, including 16 different charges, in which she was charged with committing many offenses, mainly assault and abuse of kindergarten children. According to the indictment, which is based mainly on footage from the security cameras in the kindergarten (hereinafter: the videos), between October 29, 2020 and November 16, 2020 (hereinafter: the relevant period), the appellant attacked some of the kindergarten children on many occasions in various ways. In the meantime, the appellant used to beat or pinch the children, inter alia; to sit them or "slam" them forcibly in their chairs and to force them to lie down on mattresses; pulling them from their hands or ears by force; and push them. More than once, in response to these acts, the kindergarten children would burst into tears. The appellant's actions therefore caused the kindergarten children pain, and sometimes even "real pain". The indictment further described that during the relevant period, the appellant behaved aggressively and aggressively towards the kindergarten children; and that some of the acts described in the indictment were committed in front of other children. In respect of the aforesaid, the appellant was charged with many offenses of simple assault and assault of a minor or helpless person (Charges 1-1 and 14; hereinafter: the offense of assault and the offense of assaulting a minor, respectively. The two offenses will be referred to together, hereinafter: the offenses of assault).
Copied from Nevo In addition to the assault offenses, the indictment described that on two different occasions the appellant left children unattended for several long minutes, in a manner that was liable to cause real harm to their safety or health, and thus endangered the appellant's lives. For these acts, the appellant was charged with two offenses of leaving a child unsupervised (Charges 8 and 13). In addition, in the indictment, the appellant was charged with offenses of abuse of a minor or helpless. In indictment 15, it was described that the appellant deliberately refrained from changing for one of the kindergarten children his clothes that were wet with urine (it should be noted that this indictment included another incident, but the state retracted it during the trial). Charge 16 stated, broadly, that for about seven years, until November 2020, the appellant used an "education method" whereby when one child would hit the other, she would intervene and instruct the child to "give back" to the person who had hurt him – and in some cases she would even take the hand of the battered child and hit the striking child with it (throughout the course of the proceeding, the state reduced this period to only two years). It was further claimed in this indictment that the kindergarten children were exposed to the appellant's acts of assault committed against other children (as described in the indictment), and for this reason she was charged with an additional offense of abuse.
- As part of the appellant's response to the indictment, she agreed to submit the videos – which constitute the main evidence in the case; and at the same time, she repudiated the main offenses attributed to her in the indictment, since in her position her actions do not amount to criminal offenses of assault, except in a few cases that she does not deny. Accordingly, the appellant's main line of defense was that the entirety of her actions did indeed reflect improper and undesirable conduct, but it was not essentially criminal conduct. In the aforesaid rule, the appellant described the acts documented in the videos in a different and opposite manner than those described in the indictment – so that according to her, even acts that appear to be assault are not like this, and in fact the contact with the children is caressed, lying on the bed, and the like. The appellant further argued, in general, that at that time it was facing a shortage of workers.
- For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that as part of the prosecution's case, two kindergarten assistants testified; and in the framework of the defense case, the appellant testified. In addition, the appellant's police interrogations and the statements of some of the parents of the kindergarten children, as aforesaid, were also submitted with consent.
The main points of the judgment and sentence of the trial court
- The verdict - On June 27, 2023, the trial court's judgment was rendered. The District Court convicted the appellant of most of the offenses attributed to her in the indictment, but in some cases the appellant was acquitted of the offense of assaulting a minor and was convicted instead of the offense of assault; and in other (relatively marginal) parts she was fully acquitted of the offense attributed to her. I will briefly present the main points of the verdict.
With regard to the offenses of assault, the question before the trial court was whether the appellant's actions, as documented, crossed the criminal threshold. The court examined the videos in depth, both according to what was seen in them and in the face of the appellant's testimony, which was often described by it as unreliable, and even in complete contradiction to what was seen in the videos. Against the background of this examination, the court ruled that most of the appellant's actions amount to simple assault or assault of a minor; When the distinction between the two offenses was made according to the question of whether the element of causing "actual injury" was proven (in accordance with the different elements of the offenses of assault). In a limited number of cases, it was determined that there was a reasonable doubt that the acts amounted to assault, and in those cases the appellant was acquitted accordingly. In general terms, the offenses in which the appellant was convicted were described as having used force against the children in an aggressive manner – including pulling or grabbing them by the shoulder; She picked them up from her hands; forcibly sat them in a chair or forced them to lie down on a mattress; and pinched them. A case was also described in which the appellant slapped one of the children hard. It should also be noted that in cases where it was documented in the videos that in response to the appellant's actions the children burst into tears, the trial court ruled that this indicates the violence she used against them, and sometimes it was determined that the crying indicates causing "real injury".