Cases

In 399 BC a jury of about 500 Athenian citizens tried the philosopher Socrates on charges of impiety (not honouring the city's gods and introducing new ones) and corrupting the youth. He was convicted by a narrow margin, then — after proposing, half in jest, that his "penalty" be free meals for life — sentenced to death by a larger majority. He refused offers to help him escape and drank hemlock. The case for the conviction: Athens had just emerged from defeat in the Peloponnesian War and the brutal rule of the Thirty Tyrants, several of whose leaders (Critias, Charmides) and the traitor Alcibiades had been Socrates' associates. His public questioning of democratic institutions and traditional religion broke laws the jury was entitled to apply, and he was tried under proper procedure by his peers. The case against: he was prosecuted for speech and ideas, not acts; an amnesty of 403 BC barred prosecuting political grievances from the tyranny, so the charges may have been a proxy for exactly that; and executing a 70-year-old philosopher for asking questions is the archetype of a democracy persecuting dissent. Judge the verdict, the sentence, or both — the sides let you separate them.