I was very surprised to learn just how strict torture rules were initially. Throughout our readings, we've heard dozens of accounts of women who were tortured endlessly. Some buckling under pressure while others died at the hand of the executioner. Levack lists a number of rules regarding torture beginning in the 1200s. They include ideas about torture that even to modern standards, are far more reasonable and reliable than the tactics used during the great hunt. Levack says that torture is likely to be most unreliable when these conditions are met, “(a) the person tortured is innocent of alleged crime or ignorant of the desired information; (b) the details of the confession are suggested to him by means of leading questions; and (c) the amount of torture was excessive” (Levack 81-82). For this reason, rules against repetition of torture, severity of torture and the nature of questions asked during torture were all carefully laid out. These provisions also included exclusion of pregnant women and children from torture altogether.
When the witch-hunts
were at their height, however, we see a blatant disregard for such regulations.
Areas with what seem to be the freest forms of torture had conviction rates as
high as 95% compared to regions that used little or no torture at less than 50%
(Levack 87). Most striking was the statement from the hangman in Dreissigacker
in 1631 to a pregnant woman, “I do not take you for one, two, three, not for
eight days, nor for a few weeks, but for half a year or a year or the rest of
your life until you confess and if you will not confess, I shall torture you ro
swarh, and you shall be burned after all” (Levack 85).
Why do
you think judges allowed executioners/hangmen to go so far off-book as far as
torture regulations go? Which do you regard as the most effective (to illicit
confessions) modification to torture regulation: multiple instances of torture,
using leading questions in interrogation or using more severe forms of torture?
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