I. The Laws:
A. There were not many laws;
B. What laws there were were piecemeal;
C. Athenian law was procedural, not substantive: how to handle a case, not what the definition of the crime was.
D. “Crimes such as impiety, which were taken to affect the community as a whole and to transgress the community’s unwritten standards, were left vague precisely because it was up to the community itself to bring the prosecution and to interpret and apply its moral code (R.Waterfield).”
E. little regard for precedent;
F. no special rules of evidence;
G. criteria of guilt were not wholly legal- also included morals, religious observance, general sense of whom was accused. “Up to the dikasts to decide if the accused were a good citizen”(R. Waterfield)- assess not only the crime, but the man’s entire life and behavior
II. Indictment
A. by personal confrontation of the accuser then filed with the king-archon;
B. There was no “state prosecutor”- all prosecutions were by individuals; the accusers were usually personally aggrieved (very few records of an accuser as being disinterested)
C. There were penalties for those who brought frivolous charges, though
D. Indictment was publicly posted
III. The Judge
A. the king-archon (annually elected from among certain families)
B. his role was to decide (at a preliminary hearing) whether the case should go forward
C. He was NOT to instruct the jury on the law or precedents, nor to rule evidence in or out
IV. The Jury
A. “dikasts”- chosen from a pool of 6000 out of the citizens (male);
B. The city’s population in 399 BCE was about 220,000, of which 120,000 citizens-men,women,children-30,000 metics and 70,000 slaves
C. usually 500 or so chosen; large numbers reduced bribery
D. paid service
V. The Trial
A. Speeches by the accuser(s) and the defense; by the individuals themselves, not professional stand-ins;
B. no cross-examination;
C. lasting a day at most
D. this put a premium on effective speaking, hence the appeal of sophists to train one to speak
E. 2 stage voting: on guilt, then on the penalty;
F. simple majority would decide
VI. The Penalty
A. Penalties were proposed by the accuser and the defense- the jury could take either, but could NOT impose its own
B. Death, exile, fines