In the spring of 1658, the judicial machinery of the Ayr Court focused its attention upon Johne Laurie, a resident of Bordland in the parish of Craigie. His legal proceedings were part of a broader series of trials conducted during that period, as evidenced by the administrative documentation preserved in the court records. On 31 March 1658, a formal summons was issued via a porteous roll, requiring Johne and a wider group of accused individuals to appear before the authorities to answer for charges pertaining to witchcraft.
The culmination of these legal preparations took place on 6 April 1658, the date recorded for both his appearance and trial. As a man caught within the rigorous ecclesiastical and secular scrutiny of seventeenth-century Scotland, Johne was processed alongside his contemporaries under the oversight of the Ayr justices. While the specific nature of the evidence presented against him remains obscured by the brevity of the surviving court entries, the documentation identifies him clearly within the 1658 group of those summoned to face the gravity of a capital charge.