The Greatest Miscarriage of Justice - Verdict

Perhaps one of the most significant breaches of criminal procedure in the trial of Jesus was the verdict. That is, that there was no verdict. The Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, failed to find any charge against Jesus and he repeated that on three occasions (John 18:38, John 19:4-6). Despite not reaching a decision, he did have Jesus flogged and he did then hand Jesus over to be crucified. However, what is worse is that he knew that Jesus was innocent and he knew that it was out of envy that the leaders had initially handed Jesus over to him (Matthew 27:18). As an aside, Pilate had even been told by his wife that she believed Jesus was innocent (Matthew 27:19).

But in a final act of monumental blame shifting, Pilate washed his hands, and declared himself 'innocent', before he then handed another 'innocent' man over to be crucified (Matthew 27:24-26)

The point of any criminal trial is the determination of guilt. In NSW, where either a not guilty verdict is entered, or where there is a hung jury (the failure of a jury to reach a unanimous decision) it would be entirely improper for any form of punishment to be imposed. There was no such system of juries and verdicts for the trial of Jesus, but I don't think it could be reasonable under any system of justice for a unjudged person to be handed over to be crucified.

While it is at this point that I could get all philosophical or theological as to why all of this happened or did not happen, and the significance of this or that, I am not going to. Firstly Easter is almost over, and to continue to post about Jesus’ death would be a little late for this year or far too early for next year. Secondly, as my blog is primarily made up of useless, inane observations and trivia, and as I haven’t posted any useless, inane observations and trivia in the last week, I now have a large backlog of useless, inane observations and trivia. And thirdly, that has not been the point of this series. Just in case you missed the point, (or thought that my series has indeed been like an unsharpened lead pencil - pointless), my point was simply to show the numerous irregularities of criminal procedure in the trials of Jesus.

While there are many more questions that do arise from the lack of procedural fairness, such as: why did no-one else speak up for Jesus? Why did Jesus (who is widely regarded among other things as an expert on the law) not say anything about the unfairness he was facing? Does this mean that Jesus deliberately chose to go to the cross and be crucified? And if so why would anyone choose that?

But if you have made it this far in my blog series, I hope you’ve enjoyed the rants and the raves about the lack of criminal procedure for the trials of Jesus. And whether you think the death of Jesus is significant or not, I hope, at the very least, you would agree with me that his trial either is, or stands a very good chance at being, the greatest miscarriage of justice of all time.

(PS, stay tuned for my very last post on this Easter topic - a Leunig cartoon on the crucifixion)