The criminal jurisdiction of the comitia: iudicia populi

During the early Republic the Roman assemblies operated as courts of justice in cases where an appeal was raised before the people against a sentence imposed by a magistrate.

Only a magistrate could bring a charge against a citizen and summon the assembly before which the case was to be tried. The magistrate who had resolved to impeach a citizen gave public notice of his intention at a contio.^[493] He named the accused, specified the offence with which he was charged and the form of punishment which it entailed, and set the day on which the trial was to take place {diem dicere). The magistrate might include more than one charge in the same accusation but he was not allowed to leave the penalty open. He could, however, alter the form or amount of punishment proposed during the initial stages of the proceedings^[494] and could withdraw the charge at any stage of the trial - there were usually three sessions in a trial, held on different days. Besides presiding over the proceedings, the role of the magistrate was both to accuse {accusare) and to investigate the facts of the case {anquirere).

veto remained in force during the trial, a magistrate's decisions could be blocked by another magistrate of the same or higher rank. Thus a trial could be prevented before it began or stopped at any point during the proceedings, or a proposed punishment might be precluded by another magistrate's veto. Nevertheless, the right of veto seems to have been sparingly exercised and was restricted largely to breaches of established rules of procedure.^[495] New Roman",serif;color:black'>[496] [497]

After the conclusion of the third session an interval of at least three market days {trinum nundinum) elapsed before the magistrate passed formal judgement on the accused. If the latter was found guilty, he could raise a provocatio ad populum.™ In such a case further speeches were made and arguments heard and then the magistrate's proposal {rogatio) ordering the infliction of punishment on the accused was put to the vote of the people (i.e. the comitia tributa, if the penalty was a fine, or the comitia centuriata, if he was found guilty of a capital offence). The voting procedure and the associated formalities were not different from those followed when the assembly had to decide on a legislative proposal. But if the vote had to be postponed due to a rainstorm or a similar ill omen, the accused was released, as if he had been found innocent, and could not be charged with the same offence again. An accused charged with a capital offence, especially one of a political nature, was customarily given the option of leaving the community and going into voluntary exile before a final condemnatory sentence was passed. If he took that option a plebiscite was issued declaring that the accused had forfeited all his political rights as a Roman citizen {aquae et ignis interdictio).™ The trial before the comitia was the first type of public trial that took place according to a set form of procedure. The relevant judgement was termed iudicatio and was distinguished from the coercitio, i.e. the summary punishment imposed by

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magistrates.