I would like to thank Linda Arnold, Arlene Díaz, Tamar Herzog, Máximo Langer, and Kim Morse for helping me to think about this topic. I also owe much gratitude to Matthew Brown, Matthew Mirow, and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, and to the HAHR reviewers for reading preliminary drafts of this article and providing invaluable suggestions. I also thank the investigators in the Sala de Historia at the Academia Nacional de Historia in Caracas, particularly Juan Carlos Reyes, who helped to assemble the quantitative data and organize it by geographic regions. Additional thanks to Richard Luna for help with the graphics. 1. Archivo General de la Nación de Venezuela (hereafter cited as AGN), Expedientes Criminales y Civiles (hereafter cited as CC), 1822, L-06. Hispanic American Historical Review 90:3 doi 10.1215/00182168-2010-004 Copyright 2010 by Duke University Press Liberal Justice: Judicial Reform in Venezuela’s Courts, 1786 – 1850 Reuben Zahler In January 1823, Policarpo Mendo found himself in a jail cell, and to a large degree his uncertain future hinged upon his reputation. The events that brought him to this precarious situation had begun a few days earlier, when he stood in a Caracas plaza and watched as a cartload of women accused as godas (Span- ish loyalists) was driven out of the city. He had spoken with another onlooker, Lameda Cipriana. Though the two did not know each other, they began to argue, exchanged insults, and she called him a godo. According to Cipriana and her six witnesses, Mendo then struck her to the ground and kicked her; accord- ing to Mendo and his three witnesses, he merely pushed her away. Mendo soon found himself locked in a jail cell, charged with verbal and physical injury. More worrisome than the injury charges, Cipriana and her witnesses also asserted that Mendo was known to support the royalist cause. Royalist troops still fought republican forces in some coastal cities, so an accusation of treason was no trifling matter. Further, for centuries reputation had formed one of the most important types of courtroom evidence for determining a person’s credibility or guilt. The testimony of Cipriana’s six witnesses, therefore, placed Mendo in a precarious situation. In what probably surprised both parties, however, the judge saw the case in a different light; he considered the evidence against the defendant so weak as not to merit the court’s attention, so he released Mendo and ordered him and Cipriana to split the court costs. 1