"Because She won't allow torturing people enough to suit you?"

"I don't know how much torturing people she allows? Maybe if we check it'll turn out it's the right amount. But, uh, in this case the problem is that she's allowing too much torturing people. By picking someone... who tortured people." Victòria really doesn't think this is very complicated.

“I wouldn’t think a Chosen ever would be turned to good, but before the convention I’d have said the same thing about a lawyer. Heaven is good at taking evil people and turning them good, I think, better than I expected.”

“Agree that it’d be better to know what Lastwall does instead of just trusting. But I trust them—“

The rest of that sentence, ‘more than what the other committee will come up with if they win the race’ is saying bad things about people. He almost didn’t catch himself Before he said it.

"Avenger, She isn't allowing any torturing people at all. He isn't torturing any people."

He nods along with the paladin.

"I don't see how the fact that he's stopped now changes whether I should trust the Lastwall rules are good when I don't even know what they are? I'm not saying — I know we're not allowed to punish people for things they did before the amnesty." At least not legally. 

Enric hopes that Iomedae doesn’t allow any torture, but also remembers how no one agrees what that word means. He’s heard that in Iomedae’s country, demon cultists are burned at the stake. He doesn’t think that’s true, but isn’t sure.

"I trust Iomedae," in some specific areas, "But I'm also not sure that we can pass a law if we don't know what it means. How are people supposed to follow it?"

“Is there a way to learn what Lastwall does before the committee ends? Send someone to find someone from there? Or a book?”

"Some of the other paladins are from there, I can go ask one to step in."

"That's probably best. We can wait a few minutes."

Off Angela goes to find a Lastwaller.

And a few minutes later, a somewhat Galtan-looking male paladin arrives.

"Ser Jornet said you wanted a summary of the punishments used in Lastwall?"

"That would be great. Delegate Bainilus suggested that we pass a law about only being allowed to use the punishments Lastwall uses, but we don't, uh, know what those are."

"For civilian punishments, there is execution by long-drop hanging, which is a quick and nearly painless death. Serious offenses which aren't capital may receive permanent exile. Maiming, though that has practical barriers recently. Hard labor for a specified term, either year-round or only in the off season, is permissible. Whipping is inflicted for a number of crimes. Fines and confiscation of property, of course. And, though I would not recommend you permit it with what I've seen of Chelish magistrates, judicial discretion allows a condition of parole, with another sentence which is suspended if the convict can agrees to comply with the instructions given, or dropped if they comply for the full duration specified."

"For military punishments, not all of those are allowed, but penal battalions and collective punishment of the unit are allowed. And of course you can be stripped of rank."

"...do people in Lastwall just almost never do really serious crimes?"

"It's rare. But there are quite a few executions a year."

"These seem like punishments that might work if — almost everyone is Good, so you hardly ever have to worry about people breaking the law. But — look, I know I already lost the vote on not ever torturing people during executions, but even if we just look at the regular punishments — the only thing between whipping and maiming is fines, and fines are a pretty bad punishment for most crimes. Even if you don't want to do any torture, even not during executions, you're still missing plenty of things that aren't torture. Like, uh, beating people, branding, starving someone or not letting them have anything to drink, lots of things like that. And I don't know if Lastwall has rules about only using a horsewhip but if you do then you're banning a lot of the punishments normally covered by whipping, too.

And so you're basically saying — uh, for context, Delegate Jornet, you said you weren't from Cheliax — in Cheliax it was normal for whoever did best on a test, or sometimes even just the homework, to whip whoever did the worst. Uh, to be clear, I know that was apparently Evil, just, when I think of getting whipped with a horsewhip, I think of the time I didn't realize the books had changed and put something that we weren't supposed to believe had happened anymore in a history essay. So — I mean, it depends on what your rules about whips are, but — if we only used the Lastwall punishments it'd be kind of like saying 'either we can punish you the way we'd punish someone for messing up on a history test, or we can maim you, no in-between.' And, sure, you can always add more lashes, but I think there's lots of things where we'd want to have something else in-between to do."

"Denying a prisoner, whether criminal or military, any of food, water, or sleep, is explicitly forbidden, except under circumstances where the jailors and their allies are also being denied them to the same degree by circumstance. That's considered torture. I don't think there's an explicit policy on branding or forms of beatings other than lashes, there's a philosophy that the legal code ought to be simple and that includes the range of punishments that are permitted. I would tentatively expect branding to be permitted if the Master of Justice thought there was a need for another intermediate punishment, but as a fairly serious punishment since visible brands are a permanent stigma and most crimes do not merit that."

Blink blink. "...uh, what other sorts of things does Lastwall consider torture? Like, I'd think of torture as, like, flaying someone alive, strappado, having them eaten alive by animals, that kind of thing, even if it doesn't actually kill them, not something like just not letting them eat for a couple days. Would you say... using a scourge on someone is torture? A spiked cat? Cutting their crime into their skin? Using Acid Splash on them?"

Okay, but spiked cats are kind of torture, though. Maybe if she had felt other torture she would feel differently. She's not a torture connoisseur.

"Acid splash is certainly not permitted outside combat conditions, and I struggle to imagine a method of... carving a crime into the skin... which would not also be torture. Especially relative to branding which achieves the same result. We do not used spiked cats and I struggle to imagine any reason we would start, that seems like an unacceptable additional cost in required healing and risk of disease for minimal benefit in deterrent. A leather scourge has lower cost but similarly minimal benefit. Torture is, centrally, inflicting pain for the purpose of pain. Pain is intended, in punishments, for other purposes; deterrents can be established with pain. But the pain is never the point, and causing additional pain that does not serve the true purpose, or causing unnecessary pain as in starvation, is Evil.   ...Also, sentences to labor are as effective as maiming in many cases and produce a benefit to society rather than a cost, and would generally be used for offenses between 'lashes until unconsciousness' and maiming."

It is a known flaw of people from Lastwall that they look down on everywhere else as barbaric and uncivilized, and Mandraivus is fully aware that this is not conducive to administering justice fairly on assizes and so has practice at resisting this impulse. Also this is a Calistrian and she's therefore probably Chaotic Evil, though she's not strong enough to detect. But sometimes Cheliax makes it really, really difficult.

"There were many occasions on assizes where I thought a sentence of labor of some kind would be far more - instructive - and useful than anything I was able to implement in practice."

"...If you're against hurting people for the sake of hurting them I don't get why you're okay with whipping either?" (Victòria thinks that's a really stupid thing to object to but maybe people in Lastwall just almost never do anything that they deserve to suffer for??? Or maybe Lastwall is worse than she thought, it could be either.)

"The promise of swift whipping when caught is a strong deterrent for many petty crimes." At least in Lastwall. "Conducting it with a leather scourge or a spiked whip rather than a horsewhip is not assessed to make the deterrent significantly stronger and so using those is out of line. It seems plausible that separating the punishment from the horsewhip used in infernal schools is a sufficient reason to allow and prefer the scourge."

The school punishment precedent probably matters here, and does explain some things he'd already noticed about how people responded to whipping on assizes.