Similarly, Asheri’s son, Jacob, in conjunction with a tribunal of Rabbis in Toledo, condemned to death the informer Joseph ben Samuel and handed him over to the royal executioner.[231] Joseph ibn Migas of Lucena (d. 1141) caused an informer to be stoned on the eve of the day of Atonement.[232] Others, who approved of the extermination of informers, or who actually passed the sentence of death on them and handed them over to the State authorities for execution, were such leaders of Spanish and North African Jewry as Jonah Gerondi and Solomon ben Adereth (c. 1280),[233] Isaac ben Shesheth (14th cent.), Abraham Benveniste (1432), Simon ben Zemach Duran (1400), and his son Solomon. In the particular case in which Jonah Gerondi and Solomon ben Adereth acted as the judges (c. 1280), the family of the informer tried in vain to stir up the non-Jewish authorities by declaring that a judicial murder had been committed. They claimed that according to Jewish law, the Jews had long foregone the right of imposing a capital sentence, that the sentence had not been pronounced by a Sanhedrin of twenty-three, etc. The authorities refused them a hearing. But Solomon ben Adereth found it necessary to justify the action that had been taken. He therefore submitted the case in all its details to the Rabbis of North France. Only one answer has been preserved,--that of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, who clearly and decidedly ranks himself on the side of Ben Adereth.[234] But it will be seen that in all these cases, the utmost power that was allowed to the Jewish tribunal was that of pronouncing the sentence of death. The consummation of the sentence was left to the State authorities. On Aug. 21, 1379, at the request of a delegation of Jews, the royal farmer of taxes, Joseph Pichon, was beheaded as an informer by the royal executioner. One result of this affair was, that the Cortes issued the following decree, depriving the Rabbis and the Jewish courts of the country of the right of deciding criminal cases: “We ordain and command, that henceforward it shall not be permitted for any Jews of our kingdoms, whether rabbis, elders, chiefs or any other persons that now are or shall be hereafter, to interfere to judge in any criminal cause to which death, loss of limb or banishment is attached; but they may decide all civil causes that appertain to them according to their religion. Criminal cases shall be tried by one of the Alcaldes, chosen by the Jews in the towns and places of their respective jurisdictions.... This is to be understood for those criminal cases that have hitherto been tried by the said Jews”....[235] Subsequently, owing to the influence of Abraham Benveniste, this right of judging criminal cases was restored to the Jewish courts in Spain.