The role of mental health practitioners' testimony in the Israeli Supreme Court

Pergamon

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 395-407, 1994 Copyright 0 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0160-2527/94 $6.00 + .oO

0160-2527(94)00015-8

The Role of Mental Health Practitioners’ Testimony in the Israeli Supreme Court Jonathan

Rabinowitz*

and Tamar Zur-Weissman**

This paper explores the role of mental health practitioners’ (psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers) testimony in the Israeli Supreme Court over the last decade. Israeli law is an amalgam of Ottoman Turkish, British, and Jewish law. There are two types of courts: the central court and special courts dedicated to adjudicating specific questions. There are three central courts. In ascending order they are: “Shalom” (Magistrate’s Court, literally peace court), “Mehozi” (District Court), and “Elyon” (Supreme Court). The Magistrate’s Court tries tort cases of up to $185,000, has exclusive jurisdiction over land and real estate matters, and tries criminal cases with a maximum penalty of three years.’ The District Court has jurisdiction over all matters not covered by the Magistrate’s court. This includes criminal cases with a maximum punishment of more than three years and civil cases with awards over $185,000. It has exclusive jurisdiction over inheritance, bankruptcy, income tax, and property tax. It also adjudicates child custody, alimony, guardianship, and adoption. It serves as a court of appeals for the Magistrate’s Court and the special courts. The Supreme Court has two major functions: Supreme Court of Appeals and Supreme Court of Justice. This second role allows the Court to decide if the Knesset (Israeli parliament) adhered to the existing laws in passing new legislation. The Court also oversees public officials who operate under a legal mandate (e.g., police officers, welfare officers) and the electoral process. There are several special courts. The most prominent of them are the Religious (Jewish, Moslem, Druze, and Christian), Military, Labor, and Juvenile Offenders. The Supreme Court has oversight powers over the special courts. The Religious courts deal with personal status (e.g., divorce, eligibility for marriage), alimony and child support, child custody, and dividing property connected to marriage or divorce. Personal status is in their sole jurisdiction. *Senior Lecturer, Bar-Ilan University. Address Work, Ramat-Gan, Israel. **Research Assistant, Bar-Han University. ‘There are certain

correspondence

crimes that can carry a maximum

sentence 395

to Bar-Ilan

University,

School

of seven years that they also try.

of Social

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The other matters also can be heard before other courts. The Military court tries soldiers in cases related to army service based on Israeli military law, and Arabs living in the Occupied Territories based on local law. The Labor Court has exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving the relationship between employees and employers. The Juvenile Offenders court tries minors under 18. The proceedings are conducted behind closed doors. The Court maintains a cadre of child investigators who are mental health practitioners. In cases of sexual abuse they often appear instead of the child witness. Definition

of Expert Witnesses

Experts are broadly defined by the law as people who have special knowledge gained through education or practice (Harnon, 1977). Experts are called in when the issue in question concerns scientific and professional matters that cannot be properly understood without the help of an expert. These cases involve difficulties understanding facts and drawing conclusions. According to precedent, experts can even be asked about the ultimate issue (Harnon, 1977). Experts’ special knowledge must be in an area outside the competence of the Court. In addition, the testimony must be able to help the Court make a decision. Occasionally when special knowledge was needed, and experts were not used, the appeals court returned cases to lower courts. The lower court was instructed to retry the case with the help of an expert. The Court determines who is an expert. Expertise must be established before testimony is given. There is no legal test of expertise like the well known “Frye” legal test of expertise in the United States (Frye v. United States, 1923). Yet for some professions, like medicine and psychology, their licensing law has defined which practitioners may serve as court experts. But for other professions, like engineers or architects, their licensing law states that all licensed practitioners can serve as court experts. The court defers to licensing laws. The credentials of other experts, particularly those whose expertise comes from experience and not formal education, and for whom there is no licensing, need to be examined by the Court. Common examples in Israel are ballistics and fingerprint experts. When any type of experts disagree, judges use their own judgements and not necessarily the credentials of the experts to make a choice. In some cases the law stipulates that the disputants can bring experts, as in damages cases. In other cases, such as traffic accidents, only the court can bring experts. In damages cases, the Court can introduce experts even without the consent of the disputants. Court experts’ opinions are accorded greater weight. The Supreme Court, acting as a Court of Appeals, will generally not retry cases when a court expert rendered an opinion unless the Court finds the opinion to be a gross error. According to a popular textbook on evidence by Harnon (1977), experts are expected to give the Court their data to help the Court draw its own conclusions. Experts are expected also to describe for the Court the evidence that supports their conclusions, any counter-evidence, and to share their uncertainties with the Court. The judges decide based on the evidence presented by the expert. Unlike regular witnesses, expert witnesses can base their testimony on

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hearsay. The opposing side must be given a copy of the expert’s opinion at least 20 days before the trial and, in medical cases, when the original case is filed. According to the Revised Laws of Evidence (1971, Paragraph 20), courts are permitted to accept as evidence the reports or testimony of expert witnesses in matters of science, research, arts and professional matters, and health. In many cases reviewed in this paper, testimony was given only in writing. Before 1954, however, experts were required to testify in court. Experts can be crossexamined at court order (Revised Laws of Evidence, 1971, Paragraph 26). Even after being accepted as an expert, an expert’s standing can still be questioned by the opposing side. Status and Training of Professionals There are basically three professions recognized in court as knowledgeable about human biopsychosocial functioning. They are social work, psychology, and psychiatry. Social workers usually have at least a bachelor’s degree in social work (although the law does not require it). Many of them have master’s degrees in social work or are in graduate training, and a few have doctorates. Psychologists must have a master’s degree in psychology and many of them have doctorates. Psychiatrists must be licensed physicians and have completed a residency in psychiatry. Social workers have unique legal powers when they are acting as Welfare Officers. Each municipal Welfare Department has Welfare Officers. They treat cases in which a child, mentally disabled adult, or elderly person are at risk. Their work includes issues of custody, guardianship, adoption, and determining the extent of risk to physical and emotional maltreatment or neglect. The law gives them the legal mandate to take children from their homes for up to two weeks without a court order. They also have broad powers of interrogation. This includes the right to enter wherever they suspect that a child, elderly person, or mentally disabled adult is in danger, and to question any person whom they believe may have relevant knowledge. Persons questioned have the right to silence only if they fear incriminating themselves. The Welfare Officer is seen as an arm of the Court. As such, usually they present their findings in a report to the Court, and do not appear before the Court. When they do appear it is not under oath, and they can only be cross-examined at the consent of the Court. Because of this Bloom (1981) maintains that Welfare Officers are not expert witnesses. Yet, Judge Pizam (1986) maintains that they are de facto expert witnesses because their reports are not disallowed as based on hearsay. Further, he notes that their impressions are based on social work, a known profession throughout the world, so that their opinions should be as acceptable as those of psychiatrists, psychologists, and physicians. He also notes that when both parties agree, then the Welfare Officer’s report is considered formally expert testimony. Herein we present a review of a decade of appeals cases in which mental health practitioners’ testimony was reviewed by the Israel Supreme Court acting as the Supreme Court of Appeals. As in most appeals cases, witnesses generally do not reappear before the court; their testimony is read by the

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judges from the protocol of the trial. We could only locate four previous studies (Bloom, 1981; Fruchter, 1982; Pizam, 1986; Schnit, 1985) related to this topic. None of these, however, systematically reviewed court decisions. In fact, we could not find any similar systematic review of cases reported about any court in the world. Thus, beyond being illuminating the forensic status of mental health practitioners in Israel, we believe that this study is of methodological significance. Method

Cases were retrieved from a database of all published Supreme Court cases between 1979-1990 and unpublished cases between 1985-1990. We reviewed all cases (civil and criminal) mentioning mental health practitioners. We included only cases where practitioners appeared as experts. In several cases they appeared as the defendant in criminal proceedings. We coded cases by type, issues, questions, experts, court’s acceptance of experts, and how the Court related to mental health knowledge and practitioners. Results

Mental health practitioners’ testimony appeared in 50 cases (30 civil and 20 criminal cases). Because sometimes more than one practitioner appeared in a given case, practitioners appeared before the court 111 times.2’3 Social workers appeared 14 times, psychologists 40, and psychiatrists 56. Social workers’ testimony was accepted in 12 out of 14 cases (86%), psychologists in 34 out of 40 cases (85%), and psychiatrists in 42 out of 56 cases (75%) (See Table 1). The issues addressed by practitioners in descending order of frequency are disability, child’s best interest, personality, competency to stand trial, behavior control, competency to be sentenced, competency to make decisions, psychiatric status, malpractice, and veracity. These are presented by profession in Table 2. The subjects they addressed, in descending order of frequency are adoption, murder, financial compensation, wills, custody, sex crimes, guardianship, general crimes, narcotics, psychiatric treatment, and contract of mentally disabled. These are presented by profession in Table 3. Next we discuss two major themes that emerged from our case review: ways in which the Court contended with conflicting expert’s opinions and the Court’s willingness to intervene in the mental health system. Battle of the Experts: Contending with Differences Between Experts Experts with their special knowledge are supposed to provide information to the court to help the Court reach a decision in the case. This is an idealized ‘In three cases probation officers appeared (EP 621/85; EP 63/89; EP 40/85). They are often social workers, but do not have to be. They were not included with the social workers. The court accepted them as witnesses. ‘The Court was willing to accept as evidence, albeit with caution and hesitation, gist who was not available to appear for cross examination (BGZ 805/80).

the report

of a psycholo-

0 8

3

aEight out of nine were Welfare Officers.

0

4

0

practitioners Number of

practitioners admissable

2

0

Respondent

Number of cases Number of

Appellant

Social workera

9

12114 (86%)

9

12

14

10

11

Appellant

9

All

7

Court

TABLE 1

13

15

13

12

10

Court

9

Respondent

Psychologist

Number of Cases by Profession

18

34140 (85%)

15

17

31 40

Respondent 16

Appellant 23

21

All

Psychiatrist

9

9

8

Court

50 107 85 (79%)

56 42156 (75%)

Total 35

All

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TABLE 2 Issues Addressed by Practitioners

Issues Disability Child’s best interest Personality Competency at time of crime Parents competency Competency to stand trial Behavior control (i.e., impulsivity) Competency to be sentenced Competency to make decisions Psychiatric status Malpractice Veracity Total per expert

Social Workers

Psychologists

Psychiatrists

Total cases

9 8 2 0 5 0

0

17

14

5

4 2 10 2

11 11 4 7

17 16 12 11 11 8

1 0

2 1

4 4

6 5

0 1 0 0 26

1 0 0 1 37

4 1 1 0 69

4 1 1 1 93

vision, however, because often courts are faced with conflicting expert opinions. The Court then must decide between the experts. Conflicting expert opinions among mental health practitioners is prevalent. In the cases we studied the Court dealt with conflicts between experts in different ways. In EA 279/87 Rabinowitz v. Kraizler, both parties in an inheritance case brought psychiatrists to testify about the mental competency of the deceased when she wrote her will. The psychiatrists disagreed on her mental competency. The Court settled this by saying that the testimony of one psychiatrist was couched

TABLE 3 Subjects addressed by practitioners

Subjects Adoption Murder Financial compensation Wills Custody Sex crimes Guardianship General criminal Drugs Psychiatric treatment Contract of mentally disabled Total per expert

Social Workers

Psychologists

Psychiatrists

Total number of cases

6 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 9

7 3 0 0 4 3 3 0 1 0 0 21

6 9 8 4 0 2 0 4 0 1 1 35

10 10 8 4 4 4 3 4 1 1 1 50

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in more definitive terms than the other. They also accepted testimony from the attorney of the deceased that his client was competent to affirm the psychiatrist’s opinion. In other words, the attorney was allowed to testify in the matter of the person’s competence.4 Probably the most frequent way that the Court dealt with conflicting opinions was by appointing a third expert to offset the balance. The Court chooses experts from a list of experts known to the Court or based on the experts’ title; for example, in medical cases the Court might call the Chief of Service of the appropriate medical discipline from a hospital. In a custody case (EA159/82 Vizensky v. Rider) in which two psychologists disagreed about to whom to give custody, the Court appointed a third psychologist. This was done at the consent of both parties. Yet in another custody case the Court allowed the experts, at their initiative, to convene and form a consensus (EA 456/86 Government Legal Advise? v. Anonymous). Sometimes the Court had to decide not only between experts but between disciplines. In EA 16/85 Ezra v. Vakneen, Tavori Soft Drinks and Migdal Insurance, the Court had to decide whether Moshe Ezra’s blindness was psychogenic. In this case Mr. Ezra, the claimant, alleged that he lost his vision as a result of stress caused by his supervisor’s behavior toward him. The supervisor was alleged to have become hostile toward the claimant after a work accident in which the claimant was hit by a fork lift at the soft drink factory and was unable to work for one month. After six months back on the job he became blind. He alleged that the blindness was due to mental stress caused by his employer’s antagonistic behavior. A psychiatrist testifying for the claimant said that the blindness was caused by escalating stress that intensified when the claimant returned to work. The blindness, he explained to the Court, was a subconscious response to Mr. Ezra’s desire not to “see his employer’s denigrating behavior toward him.” The Court appointed an ophthalmologist at the consent of both parties. The ophthalmologist said that the blindness was a result of lazy eye and not related to the accident. The psychiatrist then said that had he first heard the ophthalmologist’s opinion, and two more like it, before issuing his testimony, he would have not said blindness was psychogenic. The Court preferred the ophthalmologist’s testimony to the psychiatrist’s. In a complicated murder case, EP 495/85 Jaki v. State of Israel, the Court was faced with three different experts who disagreed about the effect of alcohol on the competency of the murderer when committing the crime. Among several reasons for preferring one expert, who said that the murderer was competent, over another, who said that he was not, was that the second psychiatrist did not meet with the person about whom he issued a report. The Court was persuaded by the fact that the murderer revealed many details in his testimony that suggested that he remembered what had transpired. This suggested that he was aware of what he was doing and was thus competent. In another case, the Court skirted the differences between experts by framing the question so that only one expert directly addressed the question. In EA “The courts’ acceptance of the attorney’s opinion of mental competence is similar to the work of Roesch and Golding (1980). They suggest that competency is a legal and mental health question, and that attorneys and mental health practitioners together should determine competency. ‘Government

Legal Advisor

is equivalent

to the Attorney

General

in the United States.

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and TAMAR ZUR-WEISSMAN

472181 Compensation Officer v. Abargiel, Gabriel Pinchas Abargiel, a soldier, had his first episode of schizophrenia while in the army. On this basis he was discharged. The Military Compensation Officer, and later the Military Appeals Commission, ruled that Abargiel was not entitled to compensation because he had signs of schizophrenia before conscription and his illness was “constitutional and genetic.” He appealed to the District Court, who found in his favor. They found that the Appeals Commission was mistaken in preferring the army psychiatrist’s opinion. The Court concluded that this opinion was flawed, since it ignored some of Abargiel’s crucial life history. The army appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was critical of both psychiatrists because both of them ignored certain crucial facts. Abargiel’s psychiatrist failed to note that before conscription Abargiel had a psychiatric examination required by the army that revealed life history events suggesting previous mental illness. Then he was diagnosed as having an “immature personality disorder without gross abnormality,” and was deemed fit to be drafted. The Court felt that the army psychiatrist was lax in failing to consider that although he may have had a constitutional disposition to schizophrenia, the stress of the army triggered the illness. Despite the Court’s criticism of the army psychiatrist’s opinion, it accepted this opinion. This was because Abargiel’s psychiatrist did not address the question of whether Abargiel’s symptoms were prodromal symptoms of schizophrenia. The Court avoided making medical decisions by finding that Abargiel’s psychiatrist ignored factual material suggesting psychiatric symptomatology. Because of this he did not give an opinion about whether the symptoms revealed in that preconscription psychiatric report were in fact prodromal symptoms of schizophrenia. The Court was left with only one opinion, that of the military psychiatrist, who said that these were prodromal symptoms of schizophrenia. The Court explicitly noted that it was not making a medical decision. The Court ruled in favor of the army that Abargiel was not entitled to compensation. Yet another technique used by the Court was to send the case back to the District Court to be reheard. In an adoption case, EA 32511987 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor, the District Court ruled that a girl was adoptable and she was accepted for adoption. The mother appealed to the District Court based on a psychiatric opinion that recommended against adoption. The District Court preferred another opinion favoring adoption. The mother then appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reviewed both expert opinions and returned the case to be reheard by the District Court to decide between the experts. Another way the Court dealt with conflicting experts was to limit the field of experts. They did this by using their prerogative not to accept the testimony of some experts who appeared before the District Court. For example, in an adoption case, EA 493/88 Government Legal Advisor v. Anonymous, the Court reheard a case in which the District Court refused to declare children as adoptable despite the mother’s inability to care for them. The Court’s reason was that the child’s father had an interest in maintaining contact with the child. The social worker appointed by the District Court was not accepted by the Supreme Court because the social worker’s evaluation was based on a family systems orientation. The court preferred the psychologist’s recommendation

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because it was centered on the individual child. The psychologist’s childcentered approach, the court reasoned, addressed better the question of “best interest of the child.” Also, in this case a third expert, a psychologist, was brought in who agreed with the other psychologist. This gave the court yet another reason to reject the social worker’s opinion. The court’s decision about which expert to prefer is final. The court only rehears very special cases involving matters of legal principal under very specific circumstances defined by the law. However, the court can be persuaded to hear additional experts who might give the same opinion. Yet in other cases, like the case of Abargiel (EA 472/81) discussed above, the Supreme Court added an expert by accepting one who was not accepted by District Court. Court’s Willingness to Intervene in Mental Health System The Court was generally hesitant about intervening in the mental health system. In a few cases the Court intervened to the extent that it ruled questions out of the exclusive realm of mental health practitioners or was critical of the practitioners. Sometimes the ultimate issue in cases was the professional practice of a practitioner. In these cases, the Court was faced with the question of to what extent they should intervene in the mental health system. In EA 219/ 79 Yarmelovitz and State of Israel v. Chovav, the Court overturned a District court decision that Dr. Zev Yarmelovitz, the District Psychiatrist, was negligent in hospitalizing Moshe Chovav based on hearsay without personally examining the patient. The Supreme Court maintained that the psychiatrist should have been cautious about making a decision based on hearsay, but that the Court could not decide a medical question (i.e., whether the person should have been hospitalized). The Court also noted that, in their view, the District Psychiatrist did not have to see a person before ordering him or her hospitalized. They felt, though, that a credible opinion could only be given by other psychiatric experts. The Court allowed the district psychiatrist to bring five psychiatrists as expert witnesses who concurred with the decision to hospitalize the patient. In a similar but more complicated case, Sidney Bozo, a suspect in several crimes (breaking and entry, stealing, falsifying car serial number), was sent by the District Court for inpatient psychiatric evaluation in 1981. He escaped from the psychiatric hospital and committed several more crimes, including burglarizing a house. The District Court wanted to try him for these offenses. Bozo claimed that he could not be tried because he was still a patient under evaluation, as he had never been released from the hospital by the Regional Psychiatric Commission. Generally the Commission needs to release suspected criminals who are undergoing competency evaluations. In 1981 in BGZ 541/81 Bozo v. District Court, the Court said that although Bozo was not discharged by the Commission, he could still be sent by the Court for a different evaluation, even if he was already undergoing an evaluation. Also, the Court noted that the status of being hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital does not grant judicial immunity. In 1982 (BGZ 329/1982) Sidney Bozo was tried. He admitted in the District Court to committing the crimes, and was found guilty and sentenced to prison.

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He appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that he could not be imprisoned because the Psychiatric Commission had still not discharged him after 16 months. In fact, the Commission had discharged him three days prior to the trial and had not informed him of this. Although his defense was no longer applicable, the Court was critical of the Regional Psychiatric Commission’s inefficiency. The Court was also critical of itself, as it noted that in 1981 it should have ordered Mr. Bozo moved from prison back to the hospital. In EA 15/85 Mizrahi and Mizrahi v. Raz, the Court was critical of a psychiatrist whom they felt had understated the psychopathology of the deceased in an inheritance case. In this case, the deceased had committed suicide after first shooting to death his wife and sister-in-law. The will left the entire estate to Menashe Raz, son of the deceased from his first marriage. His children from his second marriage, Rachel and Ben Zion Mizrahi, appealed the will. The Court felt that the psychiatrist who had testified in the District Court understated the deceased’s mental status; yet the man’s will was still deemed valid because it was not established that he was incompetent to understand the meaning of making a will despite his obvious mental health problems. In EA 783/81 Anonymous v. Anonymous, the Court criticized therapists for not preparing a child for father’s custody as requested by the Court. The child was raised by his grandparents after his mother’s death and the father wanted custody. The Court noted that while the experts were not on trial, their behavior could not go unremarked, as they were working as public servants. The Court further stated that if they did not agree with the Court’s request to prepare the child for the father’s custody, that they should have informed the Court that they did not agree with the Court’s order. Instead, they chose to disregard the Court’s order. The Court set a precedent by attempting to define the areas of special knowledge of mental health practitioners in EP 917/81 Cohen v. State of Israel. In that case, Shimon Cohen, Moshe Kadushin, and Shlomo Zanah were convicted by the District Court of robbing an elderly couple. Cohen appealed to the Supreme Court because he claimed that his conviction was based on testimony of Kadushin, who was not a reliable witness. To substantiate this, he presented the opinion of a psychologist that Kadushin was “capable of telling imaginary events as if they were real.” The Court did not accept the psychologist’s opinion because they reasoned that the reliability of a witness is a legal question; the Court’s impression is the ultimate test of reliability. They also noted that the psychologist’s opinion was three years old. Discussion Mental health practitioners’ testimony definitely has a role in the Israeli Supreme Court in its capacity as a Court of Appeals. Usually testimony presented in the District Court was reviewed from the protocol by the Supreme Court; witnesses were generally not recalled. Psychiatrists’ testimony was the most prevalent followed, by psychologists’ and social workers’. Two themes emerged in many cases: the Court’s need to contend with opposing experts and how much to intervene in the mental health system. These two themes are closely related because the Court’s hesitancy to intervene in mental

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health matters guided the way that it contended with differences between experts. The Court tried not to judge the merits of one expert’s testimony over another. Instead the Court found that one expert was more certain than the other, heard a third witness to break the tie, or framed the ultimate issue so that only one expert’s testimony spoke to that issue. The court avoided intervening in the mental health system. This was because they believed that the court was not equipped to make medical decisions of any kind. When they did intervene it was as a recommendation. Practitioners appeared in the same types of cases as their colleagues in United States courts (see Smith, 1989, for a review of the role of mental health experts in U.S. courts). Similar to the United States, testimony about the reliability of eye witnesses was not heard. In some ways this is troubling since, unlike other areas where the scientific basis of mental health experts is questionable (see, e.g., Ziskin & Faust, 1988), in this area their work is based on rigorous research (Loftus, 1979; Smith & Meyer, 1987; Wells & Loftus, 1984). Research findings about the accuracy of eye witnesses can help courts understand the limitations of eye witnesses’ testimony and help determine the reliability of a given witness. It was difficult to determine how much impact the expert’s testimony had on the Court, since experts usually did not give opinions on the ultimate issue. The only clear indicator about the Court’s attitude was whether they accepted the testimony. One reason for the different levels of acceptance across disciplines might be that social workers, who were accepted most often, usually appeared for the Court as public servants with no self-interest. Psychologists, who were accepted almost as often as social workers, appeared less frequently for the Court, but they also generally appeared in their capacity as public servants. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, who were accepted least often, rarely appeared for the Court and often were hired by disputants. The Court explicitly noted their dissatisfaction with private psychiatrist expert witnesses in EA 366/81, where they were hesitant to accept a private psychiatrist’s report. Further research is planned to study the role of mental health practitioners in the other courts. This has been difficult, since only select decisions of the District Courts are published, and those of the Magistrate’s Court are never published. Also, because court decisions are not totally computerized, it is difficult to find cases where mental health practitioners appeared. Another obstacle is the difficulty in securing the cooperation of the Courts. The public accessibility to court decisions is limited in some cases de jure, by statute, and in others, de facto, by limited cooperation of the Courts. References Cases reviewed BGZ 805/80 Shtain v. Shtain.6 BGZ 444/8 1 Anonymous v. Anonymous.

6Key to abbreviations: EP = “Erur Plili,” Criminal Appeal. EA = “Erur Ezrachi,” Civil Appeal BGZ = “Bagatz,” Appeal to High Court of Justice. RE = “Reshut Erur,” Permission for Appeal.

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BGZ 541/81 Bozo v. District Court Judge. BGZ 329/82 Bozo v. District Psychiatrist. BGZ 405/83 Kavali v. Kavali. BGZ 118/84 Aatia v. Army Commander and Military Court. BGZ 306/84 Vilfroind v. Vilfroind. EA 403/80 Sasy and Sasy v. Kikaon. EA 432/80 Shoshan v. Autocars Inc. EA 137/81 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor. EA 449/81 Ben Lev Ltd. v. Megued. EA 472/81 Compensation Officer v. Abargiel. EA 783/81 Anonymous v. Anonymous. EA 159/82 Vizenski v. Rider and Vizenski. EA 38 l/84 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor. EA 15185 Mizrahi and Mizrahi v. Raz. EA 16185 Ezra v. Vakneen, Tavori Soft Drinks and Migdal Insurance. EA 232/85 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor. EA 1 lo/86 Gvaram and Hasne Insurance v. Mangem Inheritors. EA 456/86 Government Legal Advisor v. Anonymous. EA 244/87 Kosh and Electrical Cooling v. Cohen. EA 279/87 Rabinowitz v. Kraizler. EA 325/87 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor. EA 415/87 State of Israel v. Israeli Insurance Company. EA 522/87 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor. EA 238/88 Yehezkeli daughters v. Yehezkeli. EA 493/88 Government Legal Advisor v. Anonymous. EA 594/84 Anonymous v. Office of Labor and Social Affairs. EA 127/84 Horn and Frantishk v. Association for the Welfare of Soldiers. EA 568/80 Anonymous and Anonymous v. State of Israel. EA 366/81 Anonymous v. Government Legal Advisor. EA 219/79 Yarmelovitz and State of Israel v. Hovav. EP 516/79 Bar Ziv and others v. State of Israel. EP 156/80 Ben Yitzhak v. State of Israel. EP 686/80 Siman Tov v. State of Israel. EP 870/80 Ben Zecharia v. Israel. EP 299/81 Tatroashvili v. State of Israel. EP 917/81 Cohen v. Israel. EP 564/83 State of Israel v. Dehari, Meir and Snib. EP 240/84 Ben Muhamad v. State of Israel. EP 40/85 Dekel v. State of Israel. EP 470/85 Bengal and Ronen v. State of Israel. EP 495/85 Jaki v. State of Israel. EP 621/85 Ben Asher v. State of Israel. EP 641/85 Zion Insurance Company v. Siso. EP 711/85 Nir v. State of Israel. EP 125/87 Ben Eliyahu v. State of Israel. EP 129/87 Mitzri v. State of Israel. EP 63/89 Mizrahi v. State of Israel. EP 348/89 State of Israel v. Lion. Literature Bloom, A. (1981). The legal status of Welfare Officers. Hupraklit, 27, 237-242. (in Hebrew). Fruchter, S. (1982). The impact of the investigative report of the welfare officer on judicial decisions concerning child custody. Ramat-Gan, Bar-Ilan University (MA Thesis) (in Hebrew). Frye v. United States, 54 App. D.C. 46, 293 F. 1013 (1923). Harnon, A. (1977). The Laws of Evidence. Jerusalem: The Center for Comparative Legal Research (in Hebrew). Israel Revised Laws qf Evidence, 197 I (in Hebrew).

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Loftus, Pizam,

E. F. (1979). Eycwitncss testimony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. C. (1986). Legal and social aspects of the status and authority of welfare officers. Hupruklit, 33, 498-512 (in Hebrew). Roesch. R., &Golding, S. L. (1980). Compefency to stand trial. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press. Schnit, D. (1985). The mutual relations between social sciences and legal system. Hapruklit, 32, 365-385 (in Hebrew). Smith, S. R., & Meyer, R. (1987). Law, behavior and mentalhealth: Policy andprucfice (pp. 330-360). New York: New York University Press. Smith, S. R. (1989). Mental health expert witnesses: of science and crystal balls. Behavioral Sciences & the

Law, 7(2) 145-180. Wells, G., & Loftus, E. F. (Eds.) (1984). Eyewitness testimony: PsychologicalPerspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ziskin, J., & Faust, D. (1988). Coping with psychiatric and psychological festimony (4th ed.). Marina Del Ray, CA: Law and Psychology Press.