Trial by jury was not the norm for criminal trials in the 12c, I believe, but it was one possibility -- but juries in that period were expected to be people who were already familiar with the pertinent facts and would apply that knowledge in their deliberations. That's one reason the decision of a jury was trusted to be the truth. (IOW, quite the opposite of the way modern juries are supposed to work.)
So if your murderer was someone well-regarded by his community, or the victim was someone commonly felt to have had it coming to him, and the victim was not of substantially higher rank than the perp, it's not improbable that the outcome of a jury trial might reflect "a higher truth".
Depending on the circumstances and the people/communities involved, a legal case might be so unlikely to stand that it would not even be prosecuted.
Trial by combat and other ordeals were still practiced in the Cadfael period, but falling out of favor.
Back in Anglo-Saxon days, of course, there was a whole formalized schedule of wergeld fees for killing and maiming, but that practice had fallen out of use even before the Norman takeover - it was a transitional phase between the private justice of blood feuds between kin and the monopolization of capital justice by the state, which was pretty much accomplished before 1066.
The Gies book says that the town/city's provost was empowered to investigate, hold trial and even order torture to find out the truth when the crime had taken place within the walls. As my man was killed right before the town gates, I put the crime under the sheriff's jurisdiction and used the Welsh custom of blood price in the end, given that while Shrewsbury belonged to England, a great deal of the population was Welsh, and I assumed that it would be accepted by the people.
So if your murderer was someone well-regarded by his community, or the victim was someone commonly felt to have had it coming to him, and the victim was not of substantially higher rank than the perp, it's not improbable that the outcome of a jury trial might reflect "a higher truth".
Depending on the circumstances and the people/communities involved, a legal case might be so unlikely to stand that it would not even be prosecuted.
Trial by combat and other ordeals were still practiced in the Cadfael period, but falling out of favor.
Back in Anglo-Saxon days, of course, there was a whole formalized schedule of wergeld fees for killing and maiming, but that practice had fallen out of use even before the Norman takeover - it was a transitional phase between the private justice of blood feuds between kin and the monopolization of capital justice by the state, which was pretty much accomplished before 1066.
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