BREAKING NEWS

Court reviews giving harsher sentence for hitting Greenspan

The High Court of Justice heard an appeal on Wednesday seeking to give Mark Patrick a harsher sentence than the earlier court-approved plea bargain for hitting Shahar Greenspan with his car while driving intoxicated.
Greenspan, 14, has been left paralyzed for life from the 2009 incident.
Patrick plead guilty and entered into a plea bargain with the prosecution to pay an NIS 1,000 fine and to perform community service. The family reacted in dismay at what it viewed as an extremely light sentence for causing Greenspan's paralysis while driving drunk. The prosecution later acknowledged that the plea bargain which it negotiated was inappropriately lenient.
However, because a lower court already approved the plea bargain and the nature of the finality of plea bargains themselves, the only avenue open to "reopening" the lower court's sentence and to pronouncing a new harsher sentence, is an appeal to the High Court.