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Under what circumstances can Beis Din lock a murderer in a room and starve him to death, if the standard halachic witness and warning requirements weren’t met, but the Beis Din is 100% convinced of the accused’s guilt?
I don’t think they actually starve him, but rather feed him something that will cause his stomach to burst, thus killing him. I forget what type of food that is. I also don’t recall when Beis Din utilizes this procedure.
They use it in cases of circumstantial crimes, were the crime would normally be a capital case. Levi, the monster would be subject to the treatment of Kipa.
Sanhedrin (81b) used the kipa when they thought the guy was guilty but there were technical reasons that they couldn’t give the death penalty. Kipa was a locked room where they’d feed him barley to make his stomach explode. They may use the kipah if there was aidus. The important thing to remember about kipa is that it is “self inflicted”.
There is a Ran in Droshas HaRan on Parshas Shoftim who says that aside from the system of beis din which was limited in its ability to punish, there would also be a legal system directed by the king or other authority who would have the ability to punish criminals without the halachic restrictions; for otherwise there would be anarchy. Beis Din itself had extra-judicial powers it could use when it deemed there was an emergency situation. This extra-judicial power could even allow it to execute someone even if normative halacha didn’t impose it.
Sanhedrin 37 tells of a man who saw someone chasing down another person into the forest and then saw him standing over the dead body, holding a bloody sword. And yet, this man could not bring the murderer to Beis Din even though it was obvious that he committed the crime, since he was only one witness, and technically, there was only circumstantial evidence.
Why all this interest in killing somebody? Are we really talking about what a beis din can do, or are we just enjoying talking about executing somebody? The Sanhedrin no longer sits in the Lishkas Hagazit, and until it does again we cannot use the death penalty. In fact, we no longer know exactly how judgment was made and how the sentence was carried out, only what the Gemara discusses, which doesn’t cover all the ground for practical application.
Enough fantasizing about this. Let’s think about something constructive – like preventing more tragedies, like maybe taking some of the stigma off mental illness so people won’t be afraid to take their family members who are seriously ill in for treatment.
Although I have not been able to separate sufficiently from my emotional reaction to this event so as to have an absolutely intellectual response, it would seem that in Beis Din Kipa could not be meted out here.
You see, all Beis Din would have here is:
1. Victim is seen with man on video.
2. Man goes into car and drives.
3. Car is found in front of house.
4. Remains found in freezer.
5. Man’s confession.
The confession is what ties all the points together. However, in Beis Din, a confession is totally invalid as a piece of evidence in a case of personal crime (to exclude monetary cases), let alone in a capital offense. We are used to putting a perp on the witness stand and convicting on the basis of that testimony. In Beis Din this is not admissible. Someone cannot testify about his own personal movements, whether that testimony is in his favour or otherwise.
It is possible that Beis Din could lock him up and throw away the key so as to insure that the public is no longer endangered by his presence, if they ascertain that he is a menace to the public. But to kill him actively or passively on the basis of a confession, it doesn’t seem probable.
Unless someone could show me a scholarly precedent that would discount my opinion above, I stand by it.
How did the barley cause the stomach to explode?
The victims blood was found on his hands
And with DNA testing its likely that his DNA will also be found on the victims as well.
Rainus, I think you are right. The Jewish legal system is not about punishment, it is about atonement. Most murderers would go free.
Rainus -“But to kill him actively or passively on the basis of a confession, it doesn’t seem probable.”
You’re wrong, I think they would put him a Kipa. They used the Kipa for circumstantial evidence. This has nothing to do with a confession. If the cops found the victim in the fridge, that’s enough circumstantial evidence to put him in the Kipa. To mete out justice directly from the Bais Din, then you need Eidim, Hasroh, etc. Kipa was used to show it’s not a Hefker Velt and the actual killing of criminals by Bais Din was very rare, not usually more than once in 70 years. The Torah justice system is much stronger than anything we have nowadays in the US justice system. And all those who keep claiming Anthony’s verdict is Just, have no clue how the Torah looks at it. They claim there are no witnesses or DNA. The Torah only looks at the Goyim having to kill for the other 6 Mitzvos, when the evidence is circumstantial. In other words, all you people who claim Justice was done in the Anthony case, would scream “Unjust, Crazy Verdict”, if a 100 witnesses came forward and said they saw her do it. In the Torah eyes, these 100 witnesses aren’t any different than circumstantial evidence. There is no difference between a 100 or a billion witnesses, none of the testimony is believed. So how could acc. to the Torah a Goyish Court mete out Justice? Only with circumstantial evidence. The witnesses just make it circumstantial. The Anthony case is circumstantial right now, even though there are no witnesses. A circumstantial case means -you don’t know for sure. But this is what the Goy has to mete out justice for. Justice is one of the 7 Mitzvos Bnai Noach. The same was done in Bais Din -if it’s circumstantial -the criminal was put in a Kipa!
Even the punishment of the kipa, I believe, was fairly limited.
For example, take the story of R. Shimon ben Shetach who saw someone chase a second person into an alley. When he finally reached the alleyway, he saw the murderer standing over his victim with the bloody knife still in his hand. However, he expressed his frustration that since (a) he didn’t actually witness the murder and (b) there were no other witnesses, he could not have the person face the justice he deserved. At that point, a snake came along and bit the murderer, killing him.
The upshot of the story, however, is that R. Shimon ben Shetach was frustrated because he was unable to do anything about this fellow whom he knew with 100% certainty to be a murderer. Had he been able to take him to a Bais Din and have him punished extra-judicially, he would not have felt so frustrated as to express his anger at the murderer.
Hence, it seems that Bais Din could not use extra-judicial killing whenever they wanted to. There must have been policies and rules in place limiting it’s use to particular circumstances, and that this case did not meet those circumstances.
The Wolf
wolfs point that Beis Din did not use the kipa whenever they would have wanted to, in no way is affected by knowing in which cases they WOULD use the kipa.
besides, wolf is not obligated to “back up his view”. he just was pointing out a logical assumption based on the case he stated.
if YOU are aware of the guidlines that the Sanhedrin used, please let us know
sorry
Bet Din would feed him bread and water for a while, to make his Intestines and stomache shrink and tighten. THen they would feed him the barley, which will kill him since he wont be able to handle it.
I asked the same question, just because we believe the torah is emet, so the torahs justice system also is emet, we want to know that this man would be killed in our world of emet!
Wolfish: To backup your view, please tell us when Beis Din did use kipa.
I did back up my view. You just mistook what my view was.
My view is that you cannot just say that Bais Din put anyone they wanted to (i.e. murderers who could not be murdered because of technical judicial restraints). The evidence for that view is the story of R. Shimon ben Shetach.
My view was not that they never did. My view was simply that you cannot make any blanket statements along the lines of “whenever Bais Din wanted to take care of someone but couldn’t give him the proper death penalty, then they did this.” Obviously there are cases when they can’t.
As to what the rules are, I’ll admit that I don’t know. But that, in no way, makes my statement any less valid or correct.
The Wolf
Droid – “There wasn’t even circumstantial evidence there. Just bad guesses.”
If you go back to my posts on the topic I posted the evidence.
I’ll repeat -finding a dead body that wasn’t reported is suspicious as murder. Finding tape and a bag is even more suspicious. The mother had a motive. The only time I would concede to anybody that they aren’t Mechuyav to kill her is if they found s/o who had a bigger motive than the mother. This hasn’t proven to be the case, so far.
This discussion just proves my point – we aren’t really sure how the Sanhedrin handled this sort of case on a practical basis. Instead of inflaming our already worked-up imaginations, let’s get real about this.
1) Our children are at risk, so we have to do more to protect them. How? Go read Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz’s site. If you have more suggestions, tell people about them.
2) According to many accounts, the killer is definitely “strange.” His lawyer claimed at the arraignment that he hears voices and has hallucinations. That’s pretty consistent with paranoid schizophrenia. If he is schizophrenic, why wasn’t he receiving treatment? Most cases of schizophrenia do well with drug treatment, and most people with schizophrenia aren’t dangerous even without treatment. In any case, if he’s mentally ill – by the medical definition, not talkback rant – then he should be under a doctor’s care. Why isn’t he? Is it the family feeling stigma? Can the frum community change its reactions to this type of problem so that people aren’t afraid to reach out for healp?
3) We were very enthusiastic to support a Jewish killer when the person he killed wasn’t Jewish and the crime was done somewhere else. Perhaps now we should rethink our approach to how we look at this issue.
This whole tragedy gives us many things to think about. Let’s do it seriously, and not just relieve our feelings by ranting about how much we want to kill the criminal.
WolfishMusings – These cases are just speculation amongst the posters what Bais Din would have done or not done. Obviously we REALLY have no clue how they actually operated.
“However, he expressed his frustration that since (a) he didn’t actually witness the murder and (b) there were no other witnesses, he could not have the person face the justice he deserved. At that point, a snake came along and bit the murderer, killing him.”
You have no proof from this Gemorroh one way or another. Acc. to Tosphos the Gemorrah says that the next part is a Rayah to what he was saying that he wanted to teach us there are other ways to kill a Rotzeach even in the time of the Bais Hamikdash. So he said I can’t kill him in Bais Din, but Hashem will kill him. How do you know if he wasn’t teaching us about that Hashem has other ways of taking care of business that he wouldn’t have taken the guy to Bais Din and killed him with the Kipa?
assume he is starving..he will eat anything they give him…
if beis din sentenced someone to death and he escaped before the sentence was carried out, how long can elapse for his capture so that beis din can still carry out the sentence?
once there is a gmar din, there is no time limit.
if the crime was committed as a young man and now he is 95,ill and incapacitated and the Godol HaDor, the sentence will be carried out.
i dont recall anything like that, maybe someone else will.
some of your questions are discussed here:
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