Blackstone's formulation
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In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation (also known as Blackstone's ratio or the Blackstone ratio) is the principle: "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.
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[edit] Historical expressions of the principle
The principle is much older than Blackstone's formulation, being closely tied to the presumption of innocence in criminal trials. An early example of the principle appears in the Bible (Genesis 18:23-32),[1][2] as:
| “ | And Abraham drew near and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?... That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes...
And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. |
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The twelfth-century legal theorist Maimonides, expounding on this passage as well as Exodus 23:7 ("the innocent and righteous slay thou not") argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would progressively lead to convictions merely "according to the judge's caprice. Hence the Exalted One has shut this door" against the use of presumptive evidence, for "it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."[1][3]
Two prior historical formulations of the same principal are known. The original was in Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae (c. 1470), where he states that "one would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally." Similarly, on October 3, 1692, while decrying the Salem witch trials, Increase Mather adapted Fortescue's statement and wrote, "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned."
Other commentators have echoed the principle; Benjamin Franklin stated it as, "it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".[4] But more authoritarian personalities are supposed to have taken the opposite view; Bismarck is believed to have stated that "it is better that ten innocent men suffer than one guilty man escape;"[1] and Pol Pot[5] to have made similar remarks.
[edit] External links
- n Guilty Men, Alexander Volokh
[edit] Popular culture
In the American animated sitcom The Simpsons (episode "Saddlesore Galactica"), Chief Wiggum states, "I'd rather let a thousand guilty men go free than chase after them."
[edit] References
- ^ a b c "n Guilty Men", 146 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 173, Alexander Volokh, 1997.
- ^ Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge, Yale University Press, Alan M. Dershowitz, 2003
- ^ Moses Maimonides, The Commandments, Neg. Comm. 290, at 269-271 (Charles B. Chavel trans., 1967).
- ^ 9 Benjamin Franklin, Works 293 (1970), Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan (Mar. 14, 1785)
- ^ Locard, Henri. Pol Pot's Little Red Book: The Sayings of Angkar. Silkworm Books, 2004. pp. 209.
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