punishment is clearly seen in their leaving to the heavenly tribunal the punishment in all cases where _Kareth_ is prescribed in the Bible.[141] The other restrictions in court procedure are too well known to need setting forth here in detail. It is enough to mention some of the rules of evidence, particularly the minute safeguards with which the giving of testimony was surrounded. Torturing of witnesses to extract from them convicting evidence was entirely unknown. The aim of the court was to lead the witnesses into giving evidence favorable to the accused, not to coerce them into helping condemn him. According to R. Jose b. Jehudah, a witness could testify only in favor of the accused.[142] The two witnesses had to be free adult men,[143] sound in mind and body, of unquestioned integrity,[144] and free of all suspicion of personal relationship to the defendant[145] or interest in the case.[146] They were first solemnly warned and adjured as to the blood responsibility resting on them and their heirs after them.[147] They were then cross-examined separately,[148] very searchingly,[149] with the _haqira_ affecting place,[150] time, the warning, etc., and with the _bediqa_ going into the smaller details.[151] A slight contradiction or discrepancy in their evidence invalidated their testimony.[152] They had to prove the act, and, what was far more difficult, prove also the intention. In order to be able to prove deliberate and understanding premeditation, the witnesses must both have warned the accused before he committed the crime,[153] with a clear warning (_Hathraa_), including a definite reference to the kind of punishment and the measure of punishment which his act would involve.[154] The warning given by them had to have been so clearly understood, that the accused had replied that he would commit the crime none the less, thereby showing that he had fully understood the warning.[155] The act must have followed closely on their warning, or the warning by the witnesses was not considered adequate, on the ground that in the intervening time it may have escaped the culprit’s memory.[156] If there was a technical flaw in the giving of this warning by the witnesses, the accused was given the benefit of the doubt that there had not been _dolus_ but only _culpa_,[157] and where the crime was not premeditated, no death penalty could be imposed.[158]