In Yermah’s day, no one could forfeit or transfer his rights, and all holdings went back to the community at death. Personal property was interred with the body, in order to destroy the magnetic attraction which would still hold the astral man to the earth, especially to his familiar haunts.
There was no law of crimes, no criminal jurisprudence such as we have to-day. But the community had the right to compel the wrong-doer to compound for injuries inflicted. The state undertook to mete out punishment the same as an individual would do in similar circumstances.
When speedily caught, a criminal was sure to suffer severely. If apprehended a year later, the penalty was much lighter as the fictitious anger of the state was supposed to be cooler.
Towers of Refuge were not only common to Asia, but were found all over the Americas and the accused was immune when once inside its sacred walls.
The trial of Alcamayn was a proceeding wholly extraordinary, irregular and independent of set rules and fixed conditions. Yermah sat with the Council of State, and was deputed by them to represent the civic interests in the final judgment.
Equity was supposed to flow from the conscience of the Servitor. He, alone, could pronounce the death sentence, after the judges and jurors had passed upon the case.
Yermah asked Ben Hu Barabe, the civil chief and law-giver of the Monbas, to personate him in the commonwealth. The four preliminary trials were before the assembly of the tribes, represented by Ben Hu Barabe; the tribunal of God, represented by Imos; the assembly of one hundred, represented by Setos; and the laws of nations, represented by Hanabusa.
These men were the four accusers, who appeared before Yermah and demanded the forfeit of Alcamayn’s life, when, at sunrise, the final sitting began.
In addition to the twelve judges and eighty jurors, there were as many more students, who stood behind their elders, and in this way learned to practice in the courts.