Judicial travesty

Those two words have aptly described the case of Maryland resident and convicted murderer Samuel Sheinbein from the beginning. Now that the verdict is in and the sentence set — 24 years in prison — the Sheinbein case will go down in history as not only a travesty, but a tragedy of justice.

Sheinbein fled to Israel days after the 1997 discovery of Alfred Tello Jr.’s mutilated body in an empty garage near Sheinbein’s home. Taking advantage of an outdated Israeli law that prohibited extradition of Israeli citizens to other countries for trial and imprisonment, he used his father’s Israeli citizenship successfully to claim his own citizenship. Sheinbein was born and raised in the United States, and his father was born in Israel before the country claimed its statehood in 1948 — the then-17-year-old was a citizen in only the loosest interpretation of the word.

The law that allowed Sheinbein to flee the American court system was passed in 1978 in order to prevent handing Jews over to anti-Semitic governments for trial. Thankfully, this law since has been changed. The Israeli Knesset passed new legislation in April, spurred by the Sheinbein case, that allows Israeli citizens who are not residents of the country to be extradited, tried and punished abroad. Sadly, this law was passed too late to have any effect on Sheinbein’s fate.

Sheinbein was a minor, but very close to his 18th birthday in September 1997, when he choked 19-year-old Tello with a rope and struck him with a sharp object. After killing his acquaintance, Sheinbein dismembered his body with a chainsaw and burned it. Sheinbein’s friend Aaron Needle, who was suspected of involvement in the murder, hanged himself while in detention in Montgomery County, Md.

The lenient sentence is the result of a plea bargain finalized in August. Sheinbein’s sentence has been backdated to his 1997 arraignment, and he will be eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence. In addition, he may be eligible for 24-hour furloughs in four years. This is the harshest sentence ever imposed on a minor convicted of murder in Israel.

Justice has not been served. Sheinbein should have — and easily could have, had he been tried in the United States — received life in prison without parole. Israeli Judge Uri Goren wrote in his sentencing that such “shocking acts of desecration to the deceased’s body, acts that are too horrendous to describe … show us to what depths the defendant sank and how inhuman he became at the time.”

The U.S. government now is faced with the difficult question of what to do next. The victim’s family has pressured Congress to block aid to Israel in the event that Sheinbein was not extradited. Several U.S. legislators have argued the same thing. Now that Sheinbein will be serving his undeniably lenient sentence in Israel, it is up to the American government to issue a strong response, or risk being taken advantage of again. Those who have committed crimes on American soil must be tried in the American judicial system.

The Knesset’s new law should ensure that such a judicial charade does not occur again in Israel. Every nation is charged with the protection of its citizens, but that obligation should not supercede human dignity and responsibility.