Jannet Corsan, a married woman of middling status residing in Dumfries, found herself at the centre of the Scottish legal system during the spring of 1659. As a woman of some local standing, she and her husband managed a croft, possessing enough material resources—specifically wheat and a swine—to attempt an intervention in her own confinement by bribing a jailor. Despite these efforts to secure her release or perhaps improve her conditions while incarcerated, her legal position proved untenable as the judicial proceedings against her advanced.
The legal process culminated in April 1659, with records documenting trials held on the 4th and 5th of the month. Throughout these proceedings, Jannet maintained a plea of not guilty. Her case, preserved in the records of the Justiciary Court (JC26), was closely intertwined with those of other women in the region; she was named as an accomplice by both Jonet Miller and Grissell McCairtnay during their respective trials. Ultimately, the court returned a verdict of guilty, and the sentence was carried out shortly thereafter, with Jannet suffering the standard execution method for witchcraft in early modern Scotland: strangulation followed by burning.