The magistrate cannot finalize a guilty verdict on circumstantial or even strong material evidence alone; the legal system demands a confession from the accused before punishment can be imposed. This forces the investigator to break the suspect psychologically, which legitimizes the use of staged confrontations, torture, and deception as procedural tools rather than abuses.
A single official personally gathers evidence, interrogates witnesses, directs the autopsy, and then pronounces and executes the sentence, holding roles that modern systems separate into police, prosecutor, and judge. This concentration means investigative error and judicial power rest in one person, whose private conviction of guilt drives the pursuit before any formal proof exists.
The investigator treats trivial discrepancies, an unusual silk merchant's route, an overheard remark, a widow's premature composure, as the thread that unravels a concealed crime, assuming ordinary surfaces hide deliberate concealment. Guilt is read not from dramatic evidence but from behavior and detail that fail to match what innocence would produce.