If witnesses conspire against someone who really is guilty, (unknown to them) they are still punished. However, if they conspire against a thief claiming to a court that he has been convicted and sentenced to pay from another court, (and this truly happened, but unknown to the witnesses) then these witnesses are not punished.

(Q) Principle:

 

(A) In the first scenario, the conspiring witnessess were attempting to have a man pay a fine, who was not yet sentenced to pay by the court.  (And the law is that he could have been spared the fine by confessing; Only the added fine, not the original amount he stole; this must always be returned)  However once the defendant has been sentenced, as in the second scenario, it was as though he already gave up that money,  and so the witnesses weren’t going to do to him something that wasn’t going to happen to him anyway.

 

      *Connection: Mishna related, and same topic and author as previous Sugya*