Legal Torture

• I. Legal Reform– Accusatorial System

• talion– Inquisitorial System

• Procedures• II. Torture (or ‘the Question)

Urbain Grandier(1590 - 1634)

Loudun, Franceexecuted 1630s

Urbain Grandier

• The evidence

Talion

• penalty the accusor would pay if s/he failed to convince the judge

• often talion involved same penalty paid for crime itself

• purpose was to discourage frivolous accusations

• once accusation submitted, could not be withdrawn without talion

Ordeals• In absence of clear evidence or confession, judge

would order ordeals– God settles guilt or innocence

• swimming• endurance of heat• combat• canonical purgation• Inquisition settled on torture to get direct confession

Inquisition

• Accused presumed guilty until proved innocent

• suspicion, gossip, denunciation sufficient to bring a person to trial

• witnesses were not identified, accusations not revealed to accused– therefore, never know who accused you or what

you’re accused of

• Convicted perjurers, children, excommunicates counted as witnesses– all people who normally would not be admitted

• no one could testify on behalf of the accused• accused permitted no counsel• torture a necessary part of trial

– Indications for torture: “evidence”, swimming, witch’s mark• torture repeated until confession• three days elapse, then accused must confirm

confession• always have to give names of others along with

confession

Swimming a witch

• in absence of witch’s mark, this was one way of establishing suspicion of guilt

Witch’s marks

• “The old woman they stripped, and found behind her right shoulder a thing much like the udder of a ewe.” (1597)

Crimem Exceptum

• aiding the devil a spiritual, not an earthly or physical crime

• since devil cannot appear in court, confession must be exrtracted from witch

• Since the will is so corrupt in such a person that the will had to be broken to ensure a true confession

Torture-effectiveness

• exponential - always extracts more names– reason why blamed for witchcraze

• by law, could not last longer than 30 mins– but each new question justified new session– some people suffered up to 50 sessions of

torture

• “a woman of fifty endured boiling fat poured over her whole body and sever racking of all her limbs without feeling anything. For she was taken from the rack free of any sense of pain, whole and uninjured, except that her great toe, that had been torn off during torture had not been restored, but this did not hinder or hurt her in any way.” Guazzo

1st Degree: Question Preparatoire

• Intimidation: showing the accused the torture chamber

• Solitary confinement: left in dank, dark, cell for days– no light, vermin infested, cold and wet– often in stock to confine limbs

• sleep deprivation: sleep loss of 30 hrs. can lead to hallucinations - more open to suggestion

2nd Degree: Question Definitive

• thumbscrew

• boot

• Rack

Clara Geissler

• 69yr old widow, resisted thumbscrew, but• “when her feet were crushed and her body

stretched to greater length, she screamed piteously and said all was true that they had demanded of her: she drank the blood of children whom she stole on nightflights, and she had murdered about sixty infants. She named twenty other women who had been with her at Sabats.”

3rd Degree - Ordinary & Extraordinary• Strappado

• Squassation

Execution• Jean Bodin: “burn witches over a slow fire, since that

pain is nothing compared to what Satan is going to make them suffer. For the fire here cannot last above half an hour before they are dead.”

• burning by fire the most common execution (in England hanging was more common)– usual strangulation beforehand, except for extreme cases like

Grandier’s– sometimes body smashed beforehand on the wheel or hacked