Q&A: A Sanhedrin That Found No Grounds for Acquittal
A Sanhedrin That Found No Grounds for Acquittal
Question
Joyous holidays! I wanted to ask what the logic is behind the rule that when all the sages of the Sanhedrin find no grounds for acquitting the defendant, we release him on the claim that it is impossible to delay the verdict. This seems utterly baffling! How can one release a vile criminal whose wickedness is so great that no merit at all can be found in his actions? I have heard many philosophical homilies about this, but they do not satisfy me. Are there dissenting opinions on this? Is there some other satisfactory explanation? I would be glad to receive an answer.
Answer
What does this have to do with delaying the verdict? A Sanhedrin in which everyone saw the defendant as guilty does not execute him. The Torah’s concern is that if no one found even a single point in his favor—especially since the Torah requires “and the congregation shall save,” meaning that any exonerating consideration, however remote, is enough to acquit—then apparently the deliberation was flawed by being one-sided. The conclusion was probably predetermined. If you ask jurists, you will hear, to your surprise, that there are no simple cases, no clear cases. There is always another side.
You need to remember that capital punishment was never really meant to be implemented. The requirements for it are nearly impossible to meet. So this rule too—that a Sanhedrin which unanimously found guilt does not execute—is part of that same tendency to acquit the defendant. The claim is that the discussion here was one-sided, and the mere possibility that this was so is enough for us to acquit him.
In the background there is another important fact. After all, here we are dealing only with punishments imposed by a religious court strictly according to the law. Sometimes there really is a case that is unequivocal, and in such cases the religious court can punish extra-legally, not strictly according to the formal law. Jewish law sets the standard for the law itself, and there is a great deal of logic in it. Solving the problem of wicked people who escape formal judgment is not the concern of Jewish law, but of the religious court operating in that place. So in my opinion there is no problem here at all.
Discussion on Answer
In the usual terminology, delaying the verdict means postponement, and that is how I understood the intent of the question (what in the passage on 35a is called prolonging the judgment). Here, “delaying the verdict” means waiting in order to deliberate toward acquittal. And the reason they exempt him from death is that they will not find any grounds in his favor, so there is no point in delaying the verdict for him. But clearly there is no scriptural decree here that if delaying the verdict does not take place, he is not executed, for if that were so, why not delay the verdict and then, if they still do not find grounds in his favor, execute him? So it is clear that the reason is substantive: there is no point in delaying the verdict because they will not find grounds in his favor. And the reason they do not execute him is that when no grounds in his favor are found, there is a flaw in the procedure. Simple as that.
If the reason for the law is one-sidedness in the deliberation, then it would also make sense to rule regarding a case where everyone acquitted him that a new verdict is required.
It seems to me that what was quoted in the name of the author of Torah Temimah appears in Meiri.
Mendi,
That is not correct. The concern is that they may execute him unjustly. There is no concern that they may acquit him unjustly. The proof is that in monetary law, a ruling that was accepted unanimously is not overturned.
In honor of the Rabbi—
I must express my great astonishment that the Rabbi wrote so simply that this law is not connected to “delaying the verdict.” But this is an explicit Talmudic statement (Sanhedrin 17a): “Rav Kahana said: A Sanhedrin that saw all of them leaning toward guilt—he is exempted. What is the reason? Since we have a tradition that delaying the verdict is done in order to find some argument in his favor, and these no longer saw any for him.”
So true, one can find a legal explanation underlying the rule, as the Rabbi wrote, but the straightforward explanation is the literal one: since it is impossible to carry out “delaying the verdict,” it is a scriptural decree that the defendant is not punished.
So how can the Rabbi write: “What does this have to do with delaying the verdict”?
I also cannot refrain from mentioning what Rabbi Baruch Epstein wrote in his book Mekor Baruch (vol. 3, parashah 25, section 12). His claim is that the interpretation of “they exempt him” as a leniency for the defendant is not correct here. Here the meaning is in the sense of concluding, as in “one who takes leave of his fellow should not part from him except with a matter of Jewish law.” He argues that the meaning is that the case is concluded with everyone convicting him, and the novelty of the Talmud is that there is no need for delaying the verdict.
He brings various proofs for this and notes that the Yad Ramah as well (the grandson of Maimonides) explained it this way, and that his father, the Arukh HaShulchan, praised his interpretation.
I would be glad to hear a response.