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276: SHOULD ONE REPORT
A CRIMINAL WHO
SUFFERS FROM HEART
DISEASE TO THE
POLICE?

ɳ Question

1. Is a physician who knows a criminal who has stolen and whom he
knows suffers from heart disease allowed to report him to the police,
in the knowledge that doing so is liable to endanger the criminal’s life
[as has happened several times, when suspects have died while being
interrogated]? Should our foremost goal be the public good, which
urges us to hand him over, or does the presence of piku’ach nefesh,
which sets aside Shabbos, mandate against reporting him?

2. There was a case of a heart patient who was involved with his
wife in negotiations in beis din for years, with nothing being settled.
Then, three days after the man underwent open heart surgery to re-
place an artificial valve and to implant a pacemaker, his wife seized the
opportunity of his being hospitalized and unable to defend himself
and applied to beis din for support. The husband’s family members
did not want to inform him so as not to aggravate his condition and
did not appoint a lawyer to defend him. The wife managed to have the
hearing take place within a week of the husband’s surgery, while he
was still hospitalized. When the beis din questioned the woman as to
why her husband wasn’t in attendance at the hearing she responded,
“He usually shows contempt for beis din and doesn’t appear before
them” [and there was no one there to represent the husband and

282 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein