Culture: This verse provides some of the best information available on the functioning of the greater Nephite judicial system. While the context is specifically Ammonihah, Mormon does not indicate that this system is unusual or unique to Ammonihah. Probably, this system prevailed generally wherever the political system fell under the Zarahemla reign of the judges.
This verse is the first time that we find clear evidence of any form of law-enforcers among the Nephites, even though no details are provided about other possible functions or even whether they were a standing body. The process of judgment was that the wronged person would come before the judge and make his claim. If the judge decided that the offender should appear, he then sent officers to bring in the offender. Then the “evidences” were presented and a verdict rendered.
What is missing in this recitation is any role for lawyers. Clearly they were involved, for this judicial process generates income for them. If we continue the speculation that these lawyers resembled the Jerusalem model more closely than the modern model, then their function was not to argue the case but to consult the records. As scribes, they would have the access to the written documents against which the judgments would be rendered. Perhaps they were also the “officers” who brought the offender in to be judged.
The punishments rendered are also interesting. Nonpayment of a debt could result in three levels of punishment: forced payment (“the man was compelled to pay that which he owed”), humiliation (“be stripped”), or banishment (“be cast out from among the people as a thief and a robber”). Presumably payment was the preferred settlement. However, if the debtor was unable to pay, then one of the next two punishments was meted out. Perhaps the presentation of possibilities would be another function of the lawyers.
The last two punishments are quite different. Personal humiliation would reduce an individual’s social status, but banishment could be a virtual death sentence, cutting the person off from his means of support and also from local kin. Without means to provide for him- or herself, the convicted person was also separated from anyone who might be socially required to assist. Perhaps kin in a different city might be willing to help, but perhaps the entire kin group would sustain the banishment because it had been levied against a kinsman in one city.
The seriousness of this punishment contrasts with the relative simplicity of “stripping.” (See, however, the variant for this verse.) Why would the same crime bear two such different penalties? (Paying the debt was not a punishment, but rather enforcing a just demand.) Stripping clearly would not have the same consequence as banishment, but how did it qualify as a punishment?
I hypothesize that these punishments may have been meted out to different social classes and represented an Ammonihahite innovation, a development influenced by the order of the Nehors which would have implemented a stratified social structure. A lower-class debtor would be banished. An upper-class debtor would be humiliated, dealing a severe blow to the offender’s pride and community standing, regardless of the punishment. Aztec judges later also administered a dual system of punishments, although apparently applying the harsher penalty to the elites.
Variant: The printer’s manuscript and all editions until the 1840 had striped instead of stripped (pay that which he owed, or be striped). Skousen sees the original word as meaning beaten or whipped and notes that while stripe is found in the context of punishment in the Bible, strip is not.