But this power could hardly be exercised outside of Spain and North Africa, and in those lands it could be exercised only in favorable periods. In Angevin England, “Criminal cases between Jews, except for the greater felonies, as homicide, mayhem, etc., could be decided in the Jewish courts according to Jewish law.”[236] In other lands also, the Jewish courts were sometimes empowered to try lesser criminal cases; but rarely, if ever, could they independently impose and carry out the death sentence. At a later period, the Kahals in Eastern Europe were granted autonomous jurisdiction in civil cases. But their greatest power hardly exceeded the right given them in Lithuania by charter of King Michael Wishnevetzki (1669-73), “to summon the criminals before the Jewish courts for punishment and exclusion from the community when necessary.” Rabbi Meir Sack emphatically protested against buying the freedom of Jewish criminals from the authorities. “We should endeavor to deprive criminals of opportunities to escape justice.” Similarly, Meir Lublin declares that the death penalty for a murderer, decreed by the law of the land, should be allowed to be consummated, if the murderer were a Jew.[237] It may be stated broadly, that after the Roman period, the right of pronouncing the death sentence was only rarely granted to the Jews, while the right of inflicting capital punishment was practically never vested in the Jewish community. Theoretically, Jewish legal opinion gave to the leading authorities of the generation or of the district, the right to act as a competent Sanhedrin of twenty-three in judging criminal and capital cases, on urgent occasions of popular wrongdoing.[238] But this right could so rarely be exercised that it became virtually obsolete. FOOTNOTES: [1] Ber. 8a, with reference to Ps. lxviii, 61. [2] Mishna Sanh. vii, 1. [3] Gen. Rab. lxv, 22. [4] This subject has been dealt with at length by A. Buechler, _Monatsschrift f. Geschichte u. Wissenschaft des Judentums_, 1906, Vol. L. [5] Sanh. vii, 4. [6] Compare Lev. xx, 10 with Deut. xxii, 24; and Num. xv, 35 with Exod. xxxi, 14f, and xxxv, 2; Matt. xxv, 37; Luke xiii, 34. [7] Lev. xxiv, 14, 23; Num. xv, 35f; Deut. xvii, 5; xxi, 19ff; xxii, 24; Acts vii, 58. [8] Lev. xxiv, 16; Num. xiv, 10; Deut. xxi, 21; xxii, 21; I Sam. xxx, 6; I Kings xii, 18; xxi, 10, 13; II Chron. x, 18; xxiv, 21; Exod. xvii, 4; viii, 22; Josephus, _War_ I. xxvii, 6; _Antiq._ XVI, xi, 17; XVI. x, 5. [9] Deut. xvii, 7. [10] Overbeck, _Apostelgeschichte_, 114; J. Juster, _Les Juifs dans l’Empire Romain_, II, 138, note 2; Schuerer, II, 262. [11] _Antiq._, XX, ix, 1; Schuerer (4th edit.), I, 581. [12] Sanh. ix, 6. [13] Compare Tosefta Kelim i, 6; Josephus, _War_, I, xxvii, 6. [14] J. Chag. II, 14, 78a; Sanh. 46a. [15] Tos. Sabb. 104b; Chajes in _Hagoren_, IV, 33-37; Zuckermandel, _Gesam. Aufsaetze_, II, 193. [16] Sanh. 67a; Tos. Sanh. x, 11; J. Sanh. VII. 2, 25d top. [17] Kid. 80a; Git. 57a.