azazyel
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Blackstone’s ratio is well known, becoming part of Anglo-American jurisprudence. He did not invent the idea of placing higher priority on protecting the innocent. His ratio of innocent to guilty is rather stingy. Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish philosopher said that “it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.” Maimonides is ten times more compassionate than Blackstone. Also more compassionate was Benjamin Franklin who correctly understood that he was expressing a venerable idea.
Regardless, the ratio is an important principle in law and morality. When pursuing and punishing the guilty outweighs concern that we are not unjust to to the innocent, we lose something very precious. The purpose of the law is to defend people. If we are not horrified at the prospect of causing undeserved suffering, then we are contrary to the whole purpose of the law. Blackstone’s Ratio (and Maimonides’s and Franklin’s ratios) are essential reminders of our essential humanity.
https://insertphilosophyhere.com/blackstones-ratio/
Grinch01
Tbh it depends on what topic free ten serial murders could harm a lot of innocent people, i get the problem with the one man siting in jail for nothing but its not that simple
br0da
This is high-quality content we need.
azazyel
I'd like to think our founders believed in freedom and depriving someone (rich white men blah blah) was the worst thing.
SavageDrums
The ten guilty people are all billionaires.
Helixninja333
And what do we have now? Jail if you're poor.
Niagaran
*USED TO HAVE
LicensedAdHominem
Agreed, better that ten guilty rich people escape, then an innocent suffers.
—conservatives everywhere
NaughtButOne
I truly, genuinely believe the world is better off without some people in it. But at the same time, I think the death penalty is inexcusable because while you can set a jailed person free, you can never come back from an execution. If one innocent person might die just so we can have the comfort of a hundred dead killers, the price is too high.
MKESewerRat
I agree with you, but bear in mind this kind of "compassion" is why Trump wasn't convicted. It's a bit upsetting that our four possible conclusions in the justice system are 'execution', 'prison time', 'marked as a felon for life', or 'did nothing wrong' and the Blackstone argument has been extremely beneficial to a political machine of con artists and propagandists who continue to insist through clenched teeth that Trump may be innocent and we are actually the villains for wanting consequences.
Fanner50
Is this meant to justify not prosecuting ICE members?
azazyel
Not this is against just snatching people up and then figuring out if they did anything wrong.
Exyr
Too bad we dont have that in the US. If we truly did we wouldnt have tens of thousands of people sitting jail for crimes they haven't been convicted of yet.
Dannyalcatraz
We have it in pieces, here and there. For example, Illinois Governor George Ryan, placed a moratorium on executions in 2000 after 13 exonerations from death row. He later commuted all 167 death sentences in 2003, paving the way for Illinois' permanent abolition in 2011.
See also The Innocence Project.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start.
FortifiedWhine
Your legal system is a disastrous quagmire. Cases sometimes never seem to end and get dragged out for eternity.
Z0op
Dont have to be in the right if can stall long enough that it nolonger matters