Editing Inquisition (section)

=== Trials ===
{{disputed|date=October 2024}}
The Inquisition's trials were secret{{sfnp|Balk |2008|p=386}} and there was no possibility of appealing the decisions.{{sfnp|Saraiva|2001|p=46}}{{dubious|date=October 2024}} The defendant was constantly pressured to confess to the "crimes" assigned to him. The Inquisitors kept the accusations made and the evidence they possessed hidden, in order to achieve a confession without announcing the accusation.{{sfnp|Kamen|1999|p=193-194}}{{sfnp|Saraiva |2001|pp=43–48}}{{dubious|date=October 2024}} The main goal was to make the defendant confess. When a lawyer was assigned to him, he was an employee of the Inquisition and worked for it, not in the defense of the accused.{{sfnp|Saraiva|2001|pp=43–48}}

Each court had its own staff (lawyers, prosecutors, notaries, etc.) and its own prison. The guards who served the inquisition spied the accused in their cells; if they refused to eat, for example, this action could be considered a fast, a Jewish custom.{{sfnp|Saraiva |2001|pp=43–48,63, 174}}

In many cases, it was common for false accusations to be made against New Christians and it was difficult to prove their innocence. It was therefore more convenient for many to make a false confession to the inquisitors, including a list of imaginary accomplices, in the hope that they would not receive extreme penalties, such as the death penalty, but only the confiscation of property or lesser penalties.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rowland|first=Robert|date=2010|title=Cristãos-novos, marranos e judeus no espelho da Inquisição|journal=Topoi|language=pt|volume=11|issue=20|pages=172–188|doi=10.1590/2237-101X011020012|issn=1518-3319|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In fact, there wasn't a trial in the modern sense of the term, but an extensive interrogation;{{dubious|date=October 2024}} the prisoner was kept in the dark about the reasons for his arrest — often for months or even years. There was no precise accusation and therefore little chance of a plausible defence. The prisoner was simply advised "to search his conscience, confess the truth, and trust to the mercy of the tribunal'".{{sfnp|Burman|2004|p=151}}

Eventually, the prisoner was informed of the charges against him — but omitting the names of the witnesses.{{sfnp|Kamen|1999|pp=194-195}} So, the guessing game continued.{{sfnp|Burman|2004|p=151}}{{dubious|date=October 2024}} After the interminable interrogations, hearings and waiting periods came to an end, the sentence could be pronounced.

The Inquisition trials had little to do with justice. [[Walter Ullmann]], a historian, summarises his evaluation: "There is hardly one item in the whole Inquisitorial procedure that could be squared with the demands of justice; on the contrary, every one of its items is the denial of justice or a hideous caricature of it [...] its principles are the very denial of the demands made by the most primitive concepts of natural justice [...] This kind of proceeding has no longer any semblance to a judicial trial but is rather its systematic and methodical perversion."{{sfnp|Saraiva|2001|pp=61–62}}

In one of his books, Portuguese author [[António José Saraiva|A. José Saraiva]] points out the analogy of the trials with the absurdity of the Kafka's novel [[The Trial]] or the [[show trial]]s of Stalin's era in Moscow.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Saraiva|first=António José|title=Inquisição e Cristãos-Novos|publisher=Editorial Inova|year=1969|edition=4th|pages=11, 142–144|language=pt}}</ref>