Background
Police stopped Haim Cohen at a checkpoint at approximately 2:15 a.m. on January 2, 2020. A police database incorrectly indicated that his driver’s license had been suspended. His reaction aroused an officer’s suspicion, prompting a vehicle search that uncovered five packages of cocaine weighing 3.57 grams net, NIS 6,500 in cash, and two mobile phones. Cohen was charged with possessing drugs not for personal use, and the State sought his designation as a drug dealer and forfeiture of the cash and phones.
The Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court initially acquitted Cohen, reasoning that the reasonable suspicion arose from the erroneous database entry and that the search evidence should therefore be excluded. The Jerusalem District Court allowed the State’s appeal. It held both that the search was lawful because reasonable suspicion is assessed from the information available to the officer at the time and, alternatively, that a good-faith database error did not warrant exclusion under section 56A(a) of the Evidence Ordinance. On remand, the Magistrates’ Court convicted Cohen. Before sentencing, Cohen admitted a separate cocaine-sale offense and several traffic offenses, including driving under the influence of cocaine and driving while disqualified. He received an aggregate sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment, a 12-month license disqualification, an NIS 8,000 fine, related penalties, and forfeiture of the seized property. The District Court rejected his subsequent appeal.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Khaled Kabub denied leave to appeal without requesting a response from the State. The Court held that reasonable suspicion authorizing a vehicle search depends in part on the information available to the officer when the search occurs. Because the officer’s real-time database information showed that Cohen’s license was suspended, that information supported reasonable suspicion and supplied lawful authority to search, even though the entry was later found to be wrong.
The Court described the police database error as regrettable and capable of entangling a law-abiding person with law enforcement through no fault of his own. Nevertheless, it held that the remedy was not exclusion of evidence obtained lawfully and in good faith. Cohen’s remaining arguments—challenging his knowledge of the cocaine, forfeiture, sentence, and designation as a drug dealer—raised neither a question of general legal importance nor a concern about a miscarriage of justice sufficient to justify a third-level appeal. Existing precedent also permitted a drug-dealer designation after the verdict. The Court denied the related stay request but gave Cohen two weeks to prepare, ordering him to report for imprisonment on August 23, 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Reasonable suspicion is assessed using the information available to the officer at the time of the search, even when police later discover that the information was erroneous.
- A good-faith police database error does not automatically make a resulting search unlawful or require exclusion of physical evidence obtained during it.
- Leave for a third-level criminal appeal requires an issue of general legal importance or a serious concern about injustice; ordinary factual, forfeiture, and sentencing disputes generally do not qualify.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that Israeli courts evaluate an officer’s search authority from the officer’s contemporaneous knowledge rather than through hindsight. It also distinguishes the need to correct harmful police-record errors from the evidentiary remedy of exclusion, which the Court declined to apply where the officer acted lawfully and in good faith.
The ruling further underscores the narrow scope of Supreme Court review after two lower-court proceedings, particularly where the requested review concerns fact findings, a sentence within accepted bounds, or a legal issue already resolved by precedent.