These questions being satisfactorily answered, the next step was a rigid examination into the facts and circumstances attending the commission of the crime and the connection of the accused therewith. This process of examination and cross-examination was termed the Bedikoth and embraced all questions not included in the Hakiroth which tended to establish the guilt or innocence of the prisoner at the bar. When the witnesses for the Commonwealth of Israel had been examined, witnesses for the defendant were heard. The accused was also urged to say anything he wished in his own behalf. As we have before pointed out, the Hakiroth questions as to time and place could be rebutted only by establishing an alibi against the witnesses for the state. If such an alibi was proved, the defendant was acquitted and at once discharged. A contributor to the "Jewish Encyclopedia," discussing this point of procedure, says: "It has been shown under Alibi how a 'set' of witnesses may be convicted as 'plotters' by another set or sets proving an alibi on them. But the opposite party may prove an alibi on the convicting set or in some other way show that the facts testified to by the first set were impossible or untrue. Under such circumstances, a modern judge or jury would weigh the credibility of the witnesses and the probability of their stories and decide between them accordingly. The sages did not trust themselves or their successors with this discretion. If there were no indicia or fraud, they held that as some one was evidently lying they could not decide which of them it was, and that there was no evidence on the point."[173] The result was an acquittal. If material contradictions in the testimony of the witnesses were shown by the Bedikoth, the trial was at once terminated and the accused was free. The failure of any witness to answer satisfactorily any of the seven questions above mentioned entitled the accused to immediate acquittal. Any material disagreement between the two or more witnesses required by the law in answer to any of these questions likewise entitled the prisoner to an immediate discharge. If the prosecuting witnesses relied upon documentary, circumstantial or hearsay evidence to convict, their testimony was at once rejected and the defendant was released. But if the accused failed to establish an alibi against the prosecuting witnesses in the matter of the Hakiroth; and if the Bedikoth developed evidence fairly consistent and uncontradictory; and if the testimony of the witnesses was purely oral, that is, was not documentary, hearsay or circumstantial, then there was legally admissible evidence to lay before the Sanhedrin. The competent witnesses who could render relevant testimony were then led, one at a time, before the general body and required to testify.