Deuteronomy 17:7-9

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall be the first raised against the person to execute the death penalty, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Legal Decisions by Priests and Judges

⁸ If a judicial decision is too difficult for you to make between one kind of bloodshed and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another—any such matters of dispute in your towns—then you shall immediately go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose, ⁹ where you shall consult with the levitical priests and the judge who is in office in those days; they shall announce to you the decision in the case.