Makkot 2: Conspiring Witnesses, Standard Punishments and Exceptions

This discussion about conspiring witnesses, those witnesses who testify intentionally to pervert justice to achieve a guilty verdict, is based on Deuteronomy 19:16-21.  In these verses, we learn that a conspiring witness is judged and then sentenced to the same punishment that would have befallen the original person on trial.  This removes evil from the community, and we should not feel pity.  Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Our first Mishna asks how witnesses are found to be conspiring.  If two witnesses testify that they are testifying against a priest that he is the son of a divorced woman or of a chalutza, rendering him a chalal and thus barred from the priesthood, one cannot make those witnesses chalal.  Instead they are given forty lashes.  Similarly if two witnesses testify that one is liable to be exiled to a city of refuge for accidentally killing someone, and others testify that they are conspiring witnesses, the two witnesses in question are not exiled. Instead they receive forty lashes.  

The Gemara notes that conspiring witnesses who testify that a daughter of a priest has had intercourse with a man not her husband are not killed by burning.  Instead, the rabbis argue, they are punished as the man she had intercourse with would have been punished.  But what if the person accused actually already was living with the consequences of what s/he had done, or of his/her status?  Is there no punishment for conspiring witnesses in such a case?  

Rabbi Yochanan suggests that one would only be punished with exile if an action had been completed.  Perhaps a conspiring witness should receive lashes as punishment.  For example, one "should not bear false witness against one's neighbour" (Exodus 20:13).  

The rabbis tell of four exceptions to the rule (conspiring witnesses are punished with the punishment they sought for an innocent party):

• they are not rendered the son of a divorced woman or a chalitza
• they are not exiled
• they do not pay the ransom if they falsely testify that the forewarned ox of one person killed another
• they are not sold as Hebrew slaves if they falsely testify that one stole property and will be sold as a Hebrew slave if he can't repay the owner

The Gemara questions whether paying ransom might be considered a form of atonement.  Further, it is noted that one does not pay a fine based on his own admission.  This is an interpretation of a different verse, one that teaches about paying a double fine to one's neighbour for a particular crime but not due to one's own admission.