Mishpatim Yesharim 1:111

"This is what happened. There is a woman who is married to a kohen, and for years, there have been rumors that she committed adultery . . . Recently, we found out that there are witnesses to her adultery. However, those witnesses were keeping their testimony secret since they were afraid for their lives. When the accused heard this he went searching for some way to disqualify the witnesses. He wrote about them that they are involved in illicit sexual relations, he found witnesses that have seen them have sex with one another, and he assembled a large bundle of evidence against them. When the witnesses regarding the woman's adultery found out that the accused wanted to disqualify them they approached three scholars, submitted themselves to forty lashes, and performed complete repentance in front of these scholars. The matter was again taken up in court . . . and they said that two years ago, on a summer Shabbat afternoon, they were sitting in one house in a courtyard, and no one else from the house was around except for them. The accused was lying in one house [in the courtyard] and the woman and her husband were in a different one. Then the husband left his house, along with his children. The accused got up, left his house, went into the woman's house, and closed the door. When the witnesses saw this, they got up secretly to see what the accused man was doing. They opened the doors of the house that the woman and the accused were lying in . . . and they saw the woman lying down with the accused on her in the manner of adulterers and of a man and his wife. They moved in the manner of intercourse, in a way that it was very clear that this man was committing adultery with his fellow's wife. . . . Response . . . The third doubt is with regards to the disqualification of the witnesses. Are lashes and repentance sufficient to restore their integrity or not? . . . Truthfully I say that according to the law of reason and its justice, the ruling is to absolutely reject this repentance because they were not prompted to repent until they saw that there were those who would disqualify them. However, reason also shows us that their disqualification is not a disqualification since they were not prompted to testify against them (the witnesses) until they prepared to testify to dispel transgression. Therefore, we will not follow the laws of reason and its teachings which are malleable like sealing wax, and we will come close to the law of our holy Torah. First, we must state that the disqualification of the evildoer is not because we are afraid he will lie. This we know since the evildoer is disqualified from testifying even when we know that he is not lying . . . Therefore, there is no reason to differentiate based on whether or not his repentance was in order to testify. In final analysis, once he receives the punishment he deserves, the disqualification leaves him, and he is fit. . . In our case, where they are evildoers who deserve lashes, once they were lashed and repented, how can we prophesy and say that they did not leave their evil ways. In final analysis, lashes is enough to make them fit for testimony, all the more so since one ought judge a person favorably since the root of all [people of] Israel is pure and clean." [Translation by Rabbi Steven Greenberg]