My weekly parashah lectures and halachah column for this past פרשת ויקרא discuss the acceptability (or lack thereof) of circumstantial evidence in halachic civil and criminal procedure. A central source is Rambam’s adamant insistence that anything short of eyewitness testimony is absolutely unacceptable in capital cases: המצווה המשלימה ר”צ האזהרה שהזהרנו מלהוציא לפועל את העונשים …
Continue reading “Sliding Down the Slippery Slope of Circumstantial Evidence”