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9/12/13 Transgender convicts deserve leniency, Supreme Court says - National Israel News | Haaretz
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Transgender convicts deserve leniency, Supreme CourtsaysConvict receives reduced sentence because he, like all other transgender prisoners, facessolitary confinement.
By Revital Hovel | Sep. 12, 2013 | 10:12 PM
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Israeli prison. Photo by Itzik Ben Malki
The Supreme Court has reduced the prison sentence of a transgender man
convicted of robbing a gas station near Eilat citing harsher imprisonment
conditions in its decision for leniency. It should be taken into
consideration during sentencing that transgender prisoners face solitary
confinement to protect them from fellow prisoners, the court said.
The defendant, 29, whose name is barred from publication, was born
female, but from a young age identified as male. He is in the process of
undergoing a sex change and has already had breast-removal surgery. The
Be'er Sheva District Court sentenced him and two co-defendants to 15
months in prison and ordered them pay NIS 5,000 as compensation to the
gas station clerk they assaulted during the robbery. The Supreme Court
reduced the transgender man’s sentence to 10 months.
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9/12/13 Transgender convicts deserve leniency, Supreme Court says - National Israel News | Haaretz
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The three were convicted by a district court of an April 2010 robbery at a
gas station in Kibbutz Eilot, during which they assaulted the clerk, held a
knife to his throat, and stole NIS 1,000. The transgender defendant
appealed to the Supreme Court to contest the jail
sentence. He faces unusually difficult jail conditions,
and his sentence should therefore be reduced, the
transgender man’s attorney, Liora Glaubach-Hacohen
of the Public Defender’s Office, told the Supreme
Court. The separation of transgender prisoners from
the rest of the incarcerated population, per Israel
Prison Service rules, should constitute a mitigating
factor in sentencing, Glaubach-Hacohen said.
The district court had ruled there was no reason to
separate the transgender man from the regular prison
population. "From a physiological standpoint, she is a
woman and it doesn't appear that there is anything
preventing her from being sent to a women's prison,"
the court said. "In any event, it can be assumed that
the prison service will act according to its policy and act in a manner that
will not endanger her."
The Israel Prison Service, however, told the Supreme Court that
transgender inmates are handled differently. When it comes to convicts
whose sexual identities are ambiguous, the service said, they must be
incarcerated separately out of concern they or those around them might
be harmed. The special treatment, Israel Prison Service said, means the
transgender prisoners must be kept in isolation and cannot partake in
activities offered to the regular inmates.
"Over the years, we have done everything we can to make it easier for
these prisoners, demonstrating sensitivity to their special circumstances,”
the prison service said. The transgender man convicted in the gas station
robbery would have to be kept in total isolation, at least for a while,
because he she has not yet undergone sex reassignment surgery, the
prison service added.
Supreme Court Justices Neal Hendel, Noam Solberg and Salim Joubran
ruled that the district court had not accorded sufficient weight to the
defendant's unusual circumstances. "The personal circumstances of [the
defendant] at this stage of her life are not routine or common, but are
unusual," Hendel wrote, adding that the district court appears believed the
defendant's isolation in jail would not be absolutely necessary. Hendel
wrote that, in light of the fact at the Supreme Court received the
information making it clear that he would be separated from the other
prisoners, "I am of the belief that it is appropriate for additional leniency
when it comes to [her] sentence."
Hendel said the sentence should be reduced from 15 to 10 months but
ruled out community service as substitute punishment citing the severity
of the crime.
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