To Plead Guilty or Not to Plead Guilty

 To Plead Guilty or Not to Plead Guilty

    As our in-class Salem witch trial approaches, I have found myself contemplating the type of witch I will be in the trial. Will I be like Tituba and confess as guilty to save myself, or will I be like Rebecca Nurse, claiming my innocence until the end? After reading about Rebecca Nurse’s execution last week, I wanted to dive deeper into the pros and cons of pleading guilty and not guilty to potentially help my own future decision.

In my previous blog post regarding false testimonies, I discussed how pleading guilty could potentially lead to freedom from execution. For many of the accused witches, this was preferable, as they wished to stay alive rather than maintain one’s innocence and experience torture. Rebecca Nurse, on the other hand, persistently claimed that she was not guilty. I found this to be inspiring, as it takes a lot of courage (I think) to allow yourself to be murdered for a crime you didn’t commit in order to stay true to yourself. 

     From what we have discussed in class and read about in various historical documents, it seems the greatest benefit to pleading not guilty at the time was indeed to protect one’s own moral and/or religious integrity. This is due to the fact that confessing to a crime one did not commit would be considered a sin due to the dishonesty involved. In addition to one’s integrity, I also read that some other pros of pleading not guilty were the slight chance of being acquitted and also getting to stand in solidarity with other victims of witch accusations. I would say these are definitely less significant pros in my mind compared to remaining true to oneself.

As far as the cons go for claiming oneself not guilty, there are far more to be seen. Due to spectral evidence being allowed at the time, most accused witches were found guilty despite what they claimed, so executions were a risk no matter what was claimed. Plus, at least if one claimed to be guilty they could attempt repentance - those that claimed not guilty did not get this opportunity. Another harsh con of pleading not guilty was that interrogations and physical harm would likely be a result in order to extract a confession. These interrogations could potentially lead to death, as seen with Giles Corey. Furthermore, because of the paranoia at the time, those who pleaded not guilty were still ostracized by the community since they were merely perceived to be rejecting repentance. 

When considering the pros and cons for pleading guilty and not guilty, it does seem like pleading guilty has significantly more pros, as you have a chance to live, potentially be forgiven by your community, and avoid the torture that comes from refusing testimony. However, does this really outweigh compromising one’s own principles? This is the question I continue to grapple with, so I guess we will see where I land in a couple of weeks.