The questioning came before trial, but the answers did not stay there.
Before the Court of Oyer and Terminer began formal witchcraft trials in June 1692, accused people were brought before magistrates for preliminary examinations. These examinations were public. The first accused were examined in the Salem Village meetinghouse, and later examinations in Salem Town drew crowds, afflicted accusers, ministers, clerks, and visiting officials.
The modern safeguards a defendant might expect were not available in the same form. The accused did not have a guaranteed defense lawyer at the examination and could not invoke a modern right to remain silent. Magistrates questioned them directly while clerks recorded answers that could become part of the later case.
John Hathorne's questioning often assumed the accusation in the form of the question itself. Asking an accused person why she hurt the children made a denial harder to fit into the frame the magistrate had already chosen.
Different clerks recorded different examinations. Reverend Samuel Parris, whose daughter Betty and niece Abigail Williams were among the first afflicted girls, took notes at important early examinations; Ezekiel Cheever and others also recorded testimony. Those surviving records are a major reason the questioning can still be reconstructed today.
The danger was not that every transcript was a perfect verbatim record. It was that the accused's answers entered an official paper trail controlled by the authorities conducting the examination, and those records could be carried into later proceedings.
Modern criminal procedure is radically different, but the basic risk is familiar enough that it is now stated explicitly: things said before trial can later be used in court. Miranda warnings did not exist in 1692, and neither did the modern bundle of procedural protections they represent. The Salem examination shows why the moment before a formal trial can still be one of the most consequential parts of a case.
Before the trial is still part of the file.