If she weighs the same as a duck... she's made of wood!
April 30, 2013 7:55 PM Subscribe
Trials by Ordeal were a method of determining guilt or innocence by putting the accused through various torturous experiences. Today these approaches are frequently-mocked and banned almost everywhere, though Sassywood remains common in Liberia. However, economist Peter Leeson argues that trial by ordeal may have been a very effective way of dispensing justice, especially when courts and juries were expensive or broken. According to the paper [PDF], a superstitious belief in iudicium Dei, or the justice of God, may have discouraged the guilty from ordeals, while tilting the scales in favor of the innocent - echoes of the practice persist today in swearing on a Bible. Even Sassywood [pdf] may be better than Liberia's broken justice system.
Whoa, this is quite a thesis, that trials by ordeal were ok because you proved your innocence by going through with it:
The next thing to understand is that clerics administrated ordeals and adjudged their outcomes - and did so under elaborate sets of rules that gave them wide latitude to manipulate the process. Priests knew that only innocent defendants would be willing to plunge their hands in boiling water. So priests could simply rig trials to exonerate defendants who were willing to go through with the ordeal. The rituals around the ordeals gave them plenty of cover to ensure the water wasn’t boiling, or the iron wasn’t burning, and so on. If rigging failed, a priest could interpret the ordeal’s outcome to exculpate the defendant nonetheless (“His arm is healing well!”).
Unless your neighbor was bribing the priest because he wanted your land, or your wife, or he thought that you wanted his land, or his wife, etc. This theory assumes that an innocent person will be okay if the authorities are on their side. All a judge and jury system needs is for the authorities to be impartial. An impartial priest would be bad news. And that's in communities where friendly authorities existed and could intervene. I doubt that's been universal in these kinds of systems across all of the cultures. I just don't see how you can make the point that setting up an innocent person to fail or die can be called a reasonable system, as he does here. "A system that has existed over various times and places in human history" while withholding judgement about it as required by standards of ethics in the social sciences, that is what I'd rather call it.
posted by bleep at 8:24 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
The next thing to understand is that clerics administrated ordeals and adjudged their outcomes - and did so under elaborate sets of rules that gave them wide latitude to manipulate the process. Priests knew that only innocent defendants would be willing to plunge their hands in boiling water. So priests could simply rig trials to exonerate defendants who were willing to go through with the ordeal. The rituals around the ordeals gave them plenty of cover to ensure the water wasn’t boiling, or the iron wasn’t burning, and so on. If rigging failed, a priest could interpret the ordeal’s outcome to exculpate the defendant nonetheless (“His arm is healing well!”).
Unless your neighbor was bribing the priest because he wanted your land, or your wife, or he thought that you wanted his land, or his wife, etc. This theory assumes that an innocent person will be okay if the authorities are on their side. All a judge and jury system needs is for the authorities to be impartial. An impartial priest would be bad news. And that's in communities where friendly authorities existed and could intervene. I doubt that's been universal in these kinds of systems across all of the cultures. I just don't see how you can make the point that setting up an innocent person to fail or die can be called a reasonable system, as he does here. "A system that has existed over various times and places in human history" while withholding judgement about it as required by standards of ethics in the social sciences, that is what I'd rather call it.
posted by bleep at 8:24 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I should say, as a social scientist myself, I don't take the paper as more than an interesting game-theoretic exercise. In other words, I am not pro-trial-by-ordeal, just pro-interesting-FPP.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:50 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by blahblahblah at 8:50 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
They might discourage people from committing crimes, but it also encourages people using the apparatus of justice itself as a weapon, because it means that being accused carries some of the weight of punishment by itself, placing undue power in the hands of accusers. Usually the people with the power to accuse people of crimes and make it stick are the powerful, so trial by ordeal inherently supports existing power structures.
Come to think of it, our own justice system is so expensive and time consuming that it's somewhat like a trial by ordeal.
Stranger still, the ordeal system suggests that pervasive superstition can be good for society.
Sure, just like the belief in witchcraft in Liberia has resulted in people being falsely accused, and thus forced to drink sassywood! Ipso fuckto!
The key insight is that ordeals weren’t just widely practiced. They were widely believed in.
This is essentially security through obscurity. It only works if you don't call the system's bluff.
Guilty believers expected God to reveal their guilt by harming them in the ordeal. They anticipated being boiled and convicted. Innocent believers, meanwhile, expected God to protect them in the ordeal. They anticipated escaping unscathed, and being exonerated.
Impossible to subvert, just like polygraph tests! Wait a moment.
Don't worry blahblahblah, I think we're pretty sure you aren't trying to argue on behalf of torturing people to determine guilt. Is interesting, but that Boston.com article gets up my nose because I can imagine people who might actually buy into this deal.
posted by JHarris at 9:06 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
Come to think of it, our own justice system is so expensive and time consuming that it's somewhat like a trial by ordeal.
Stranger still, the ordeal system suggests that pervasive superstition can be good for society.
Sure, just like the belief in witchcraft in Liberia has resulted in people being falsely accused, and thus forced to drink sassywood! Ipso fuckto!
The key insight is that ordeals weren’t just widely practiced. They were widely believed in.
This is essentially security through obscurity. It only works if you don't call the system's bluff.
Guilty believers expected God to reveal their guilt by harming them in the ordeal. They anticipated being boiled and convicted. Innocent believers, meanwhile, expected God to protect them in the ordeal. They anticipated escaping unscathed, and being exonerated.
Impossible to subvert, just like polygraph tests! Wait a moment.
Don't worry blahblahblah, I think we're pretty sure you aren't trying to argue on behalf of torturing people to determine guilt. Is interesting, but that Boston.com article gets up my nose because I can imagine people who might actually buy into this deal.
posted by JHarris at 9:06 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
The next thing to understand is that clerics administrated ordeals and adjudged their outcomes - and did so under elaborate sets of rules that gave them wide latitude to manipulate the process. Priests knew that only innocent defendants would be willing to plunge their hands in boiling water. So priests could simply rig trials to exonerate defendants who were willing to go through with the ordeal. The rituals around the ordeals gave them plenty of cover to ensure the water wasn’t boiling, or the iron wasn’t burning, and so on. If rigging failed, a priest could interpret the ordeal’s outcome to exculpate the defendant nonetheless (“His arm is healing well!”).
This only works if the priests don't believe in the validity of the trials, which isn't really substantiated.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 9:26 PM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]
This only works if the priests don't believe in the validity of the trials, which isn't really substantiated.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 9:26 PM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]
I can't tell: Is there actually evidence in the paper for the 'sassywood expert doctors the potion so innocent voms' story, or is it just supposition on the part of the authors?
posted by PMdixon at 9:50 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by PMdixon at 9:50 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Christians in the Middle Ages had a conceptual problem with having Jews take oaths in court: Jews denied the self-evident truth of the Christian scriptures; how could their oaths be worth anything? So they came up with weird and perverse ways of having Jews take oaths, presumably on the theory that someone standing on a stool wouldn't lie, or that a crown of thorns would infallibly ensure that they told the truth. Wikipedia link here.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:51 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:51 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Stranger still, the ordeal system suggests that pervasive superstition can be good for society."
Educated stupid.
(It technically suggests that pervasive superstition doesn't preclude positive outcomes; it does not suggest that pervasive superstition is a net good, even in the limited realm of courts.
More than that, this article suggests that sophistry can be good for tenure.)
posted by klangklangston at 11:01 PM on April 30, 2013
Educated stupid.
(It technically suggests that pervasive superstition doesn't preclude positive outcomes; it does not suggest that pervasive superstition is a net good, even in the limited realm of courts.
More than that, this article suggests that sophistry can be good for tenure.)
posted by klangklangston at 11:01 PM on April 30, 2013
I have a theory that goes like this:
There is no practice too odious for some economist somewhere to support.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:59 PM on April 30, 2013 [11 favorites]
There is no practice too odious for some economist somewhere to support.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:59 PM on April 30, 2013 [11 favorites]
I'd consider the theory plausible enough that secretly atheist priests supported the practice for exactly this reason way back.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:36 PM on May 1, 2013
posted by jeffburdges at 12:36 PM on May 1, 2013
They might discourage people from committing crimes, but it also encourages people using the apparatus of justice itself as a weapon, because it means that being accused carries some of the weight of punishment by itself
This is also true of trial by judge or jury, especially in a system where pretrial detention or monitoring are common and where trials themselves are hideously expensive, in both time and money. Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty, but in most jurisdictions I'm familiar with, if a judge thinks there's good reason to think you might be dangerous or might flee (and in a lot of places in the US, that basically means you've been accused of a violent crime), they can hold you in jail until your trial. If you're accused of something serious, that can be years. And yes, you have the right to an attorney, but in most places, if you or your family are middle class, you don't qualify for a court-appointed attorney, and you get what you pay for. I know a guy whose parents literally lost their house paying for a lawyer to defend him against a rape charge for which he was ultimately found not guilty. And there's no mechanism for getting your attorney fees paid if it turns out you didn't do it. Plus, even if you're on pretrial release, there's a huge cost to having to miss work/skip school/pay for childcare/find transportation to come to court dates, and having to comply with probation-like release conditions that can include peeing in a cup or wearing an ankle monitor or even house arrest. And all of that is on top of the stigma of being accused in the first place.
If you really want to F up someone's life, just call the cops and tell them that the person beat you up or threatened you with a knife or something. Even if they're eventually acquitted, you can get the legal system to really mess with them in the meantime.
All this is to say that I have my doubts that any innocent person ever comes out of being accused of a crime unscathed, whether he's forced to put his hand in boiling water or not.
posted by decathecting at 3:08 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is also true of trial by judge or jury, especially in a system where pretrial detention or monitoring are common and where trials themselves are hideously expensive, in both time and money. Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty, but in most jurisdictions I'm familiar with, if a judge thinks there's good reason to think you might be dangerous or might flee (and in a lot of places in the US, that basically means you've been accused of a violent crime), they can hold you in jail until your trial. If you're accused of something serious, that can be years. And yes, you have the right to an attorney, but in most places, if you or your family are middle class, you don't qualify for a court-appointed attorney, and you get what you pay for. I know a guy whose parents literally lost their house paying for a lawyer to defend him against a rape charge for which he was ultimately found not guilty. And there's no mechanism for getting your attorney fees paid if it turns out you didn't do it. Plus, even if you're on pretrial release, there's a huge cost to having to miss work/skip school/pay for childcare/find transportation to come to court dates, and having to comply with probation-like release conditions that can include peeing in a cup or wearing an ankle monitor or even house arrest. And all of that is on top of the stigma of being accused in the first place.
If you really want to F up someone's life, just call the cops and tell them that the person beat you up or threatened you with a knife or something. Even if they're eventually acquitted, you can get the legal system to really mess with them in the meantime.
All this is to say that I have my doubts that any innocent person ever comes out of being accused of a crime unscathed, whether he's forced to put his hand in boiling water or not.
posted by decathecting at 3:08 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
« Older Fire Writing | The map of music Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
wat
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 8:20 PM on April 30, 2013 [3 favorites]