Unlike many of us today, in the eyes of the Athenians at that time, perhaps Socrates' judgment was not a problem at all, because the case was completely tried in accordance with the laws of the Athenian city-state. The three people who sued Socrates were all Athenian citizens, and they prosecuted according to law. The main accusation against Socrates is that he doesn't respect the gods that the polis believes in and introduces new gods.
The procedure for establishing the court is complicated and democratic. Different from modern times, the Athens court at that time had no judges, only the presiding judge, who was responsible for organizing trials and maintaining court order, and the judgment power was in the hands of the jury. The members of the jury were chosen by lot from the citizens. The method is: at the beginning of each year, citizens voluntarily sign up to participate in the jury, and then select 6000 people from the applicants to become members of the jury that year. On the day of the court session, city-state officials need to determine the jury size of each court in advance according to the size of the case (ranging from 5 to 2,000), and then draw lots from the registered 6,000 members to select jurors to appear in court; Before the trial, lots are drawn to decide which court these jurors will go to as jurors. The above operation process is incredibly complicated. The Athenians designed this program mainly to prevent bribery. Suppose you are the defendant, you can't know in advance which jurors will participate in your case, and you can't bribe all 6000 jurors. The jury that tried Socrates consisted of 500 people, all of whom were randomly selected.
The court entered the trial procedure, and the plaintiff and the defendant appealed and gave evidence respectively. Then the jury voted for the first time to decide whether the defendant was guilty or not. If the majority vote is not guilty, the defendant will get the name of innocence; But the case is not over yet, and it depends on how many votes the plaintiff gets. If the plaintiff gets less than one-fifth of the total votes, he will be punished-this measure is to prevent malicious false accusations. If the defendant is found guilty in this vote, the plaintiff and the defendant themselves will put forward what kind of punishment should be imposed, and then the jury will vote on their opinions for the second time and choose one of them as the final judgment. This kind of trial seems absurd, but it is reasonable, because both the plaintiff and the defendant will pay attention to discretion and will not do whatever they want in order to get their punishment opinions recognized by the jury. Socrates' case was found guilty by 280 votes to 220 votes in the first round of court voting. Later, as a defendant, his punishment for himself seemed careless: first, he said that he was innocent, but he had made meritorious service to the polis and deserved the courtesy of the polis; Later, a fine of 100 drachma (ancient Greek silver coins) was proposed. Because this penalty was almost a joke and unreasonable, some jurors who had sympathized with him turned to the penalty proposed by the plaintiff, and Socrates was finally sentenced to death by 360 votes to 140. The court found him guilty of "disrespecting the gods recognized in Athens, introducing new gods", "inciting anti-democratic remarks", "confusing young people" and "bringing great disasters to Athens".
In court, Socrates made a defense speech for himself. He said, "Claudia people are busy hurting people all day. Although they have great power, they can't force me to do evil. I let people pay attention to the perfection of the soul and understand that virtue can't be bought with money; If this is a theory that confuses young people, then I am a bad person. You can release me or execute me. Even if I die again, I won't change my behavior. " The Athens court rejected Socrates' defense and finally upheld his death sentence. Socrates rejected the escape plan arranged by the students and decided to accept the death penalty. He believes that although the judgment is contrary to the facts, it is a legal court judgment and he must obey it.