result, convictions for capital offense were rare, but did happen in Judaism. The standards of evidence in capital cases include: Two witnesses were required. Acceptability was limited to: Adult Jewish men who were known to keep the commandments, knew the written and oral law, and had legitimate professions; The witnesses had to see each other at the time of the sin; The witnesses had to be able to speak clearly, without any speech impediment or hearing deficit (to ensure that the warning and the response were done); The witnesses could not be related to each other, or to the accused. The witnesses had to see each other, and both of them had to give a warning (hatra'ah) to the person that the sin they were about to commit was a capital offense; This warning had to be delivered within seconds of the performance of the sin (in the time it took to say, "Peace unto you, my Rabbi and my Master"); In the same amount of time, the person about to sin had to both respond that s/he was familiar with the punishment, but they were going to sin anyway; and begin to commit the sin/crime; However, if the accused has already committed the crime, the accused would have been given a chance to repent (i.e. Ezekiel 18:27), and if they repeated the same crime, or any other, it would lead to a death sentence. If witnesses were caught lying about the crime, they would be executed. The Beth Din (rabbinical court) had to examine each witness separately; and if even one minor point of their evidence, such as eye color, was contradictory the evidence was considered contradictory, and the evidence was not heeded; The Beth Din had to consist of a minimum of 23 judges; The majority could not be a simple majority - the split verdict that would allow conviction had to be at least 13 to 10 in favor of conviction; If the Beth Din arrived at a unanimous verdict of guilty, the person was let go - the idea being that if no judge could find anything exculpatory about the accused, there was something wrong with the court. The witnesses were appointed by the court to be the executioners. Where the death sentence was warranted but the court had not the jurisdiction to mete out the death sentence, such as when there were not two or