The first example concerns a ruling on stoning said in this discussion to be present in the Torah. The contrasting practices mentioned involve public humiliation and alternative punitive displays. The issue in the argument is not merely that views differ, but that an identified ruling was allegedly known and withheld.
Two questions require separate evidence: what the earlier legal text actually prescribed, and whether a particular participant knowingly concealed it. Conflating those issues obscures the argument.
The broader principle is that suppressing decisive evidence to replace it with a convenient decision is intellectually dishonest. This historical example does not, by itself, settle a contemporary legal case or authorize the application of punishment.