A lot of the answer to this depends on your jurisdiction -- how the legal system functioned was key to how often people were accused and the way in which they were punished. Now just for the sake of fun, im gonna change your question from the 15th century to the 16th, just because i can give a much more complete answer on that period. In all of Europe at the time of the great witch hunts there was some sort of due process, but it varied widely. One of the reasons for relatively low rates of witch conviction (between 20-25%) in England was because the english legal system was highly centralised. Royal judges would go out and try cases locally according to the kings law. As such they were not enmeshed in local issues ad were much less likely to get caught up in the excitment of a witch hunt. This contrasts quite sharply with places like Scotland (conviction rate 67% roughly) and Germany (80%+ in some cases) where justice was much more localised. There are other reasons as well for the lethality of a witch hunt. On the continent it was defined as a heresy, with witch craft representing a demonic pact, which demanded death while in England it was defined as a maleficium -- an evil doing which could bear punishments other than death.