Bajo las togas : Errores judiciales y otras infamias

“Beneath the jurists’ robes… hid the assassins’ dagger.” This was the stark conclusion of the 1947 Nuremberg trial against the leading German judges and magistrates of the Third Reich who had sanctioned and applied the regime’s repressive and discriminatory laws against Jews, Roma, the physically and mentally disabled, dissidents, and political opponents. Alongside this trial against the iniquitous sentences of the National Socialist period, *Under the Robes* extensively analyzes judicial aberrations such as public executions, the death penalty, and systematic torture to obtain confessions, as well as scandalous injustices—like the infamous Calas trial, which provoked Voltaire’s outrage—that tarnish the history of law. Proceedings shrouded in secrecy and uncertainty, such as the strange case of Martin Guerre—a case of identity theft in 16th-century France—the unjust conviction of Mariana Pineda, or the "special interrogations" endured by IRA prisoners in 1970s Ireland, mark a long series of infamies and judicial abuses. Born of ignorance, prejudice, or the bad faith of witnesses, lawyers, and judges, these stories captivated the imagination of writers like Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, and Franz Kafka, and today they provoke our astonishment and awaken our conscience.