Spanish justice

Modern law generally accepts the principal of individual responsibility, particularly for serious crimes. Warée in Curiosités judiciaires (1859), cited on this excellent and highly entertaining French criminal law site, gives an example of how not to proceed:

In a Spanish village a tailor was sentenced to be hung. The inhabitants went and found the judge and said to him: “This is a right pain in the posterior end because we’ve only got the one tailor in the village. Leave it us, and if you really want to hang someone, then we have two cartwrights; take whichever one you want and we’ll get by with the other.” (En un village d’Espagne, on condamna un tailleur à être pendu ; les habitants allèrent trouver le juge et lui dirent : « Cela nous incommode bien, car il n’y a dans le village que ce tailleur. Laissez-le nous, et si c’est que vous vouliez vraiment pendre quelqu’un, nous avons deux charrons ; prenez celui qui vous plaira ; ce sera assez d’un seul de reste ».)

The system has improved here to the extent that it is now customary to pillory the accuser.

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