Page:The "Trial" of Ferrer - A Clerical Judicial Murder (IA 2916970.0001.001.umich.edu).pdf/44

 man supposedly versed in jurisprudence, whose duty it is to enlighten the officers acting as judges, forgot to tell them that according to a well-known maxim of law, "testis unus, testis nullus," one single witness is no witness. If this immemorial principle has been left out of modern legisla- tion, it is because this new legislation has abolished as being unnecessary the antiquated system of exceptions and in- yalidations which protected the accused against the arbi- trary character of the old system of inquisitive procedure, written and secret; but this old system has been kept in the Spanish Code of Military Justice. As for the evident veracity of the witness, we will let the reader judge for himself. After listening to the Assessor the judges had about four hours to deliberate. In those four hours they were sup- posed to study the written secret "summary," the deeree of the Auditor elevating the trial to the grade of pleniary, the resume of the Judge Instructor, the accusations of the Public Prosecutor, the defense, and the instructions of the Assessor-more than 1200 pages; they were supposed to read all that and deliberate on it in four hours! Then they pronounced the sentence. The sentence, as is usual in the "W;: Councils," does not contain any enumeration of the facte which are considered as proofs, nor any allusions to the legal precepts which have been followed. Therefore we, do not know on what ground the judges based their Bentence, although it reproduces point for point the ad- vice of the Assessor. The sentence condemned Ferrer to the death penalty and the loss of his property. One fact points the careful student to the direction of the wind in this affair. The Prosecution demanded that the accused be sentenced, besides the death penalty, to Indempify. fall the injuries and losses occasioned by the