Blackstone’s dumb ratio
by digby
Blackstone’s ratio:”better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”
If you are looking for an insight into how right wingers justify the death penalty, look no further than this:
In truth, even if an innocent man were executed, it wouldn’t change anything. We already have a system that’s slanted in favor of the defendants in criminal trials and heavily against the death penalty. In fact, if anything, our justice system probably leans too far in favor of the criminal and too heavily against getting justice for the victims. See Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson for evidence of that. Since that’s the case, the only way to make sure an innocent man is NEVER unjustly jailed would be to refuse to put anyone in prison. If you recognize that we do need to punish criminals for their crimes, that the system is already weighted in favor of the criminal, and that it’s impossible to never make a mistake, then you have to accept the idea that despite our best efforts, mistakes are going to happen.
See? They are all guilty and even if a few of them aren’t we’d have to stop putting anyone in prison at all if we didn’t kill a few innocent people along the way. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!
Boy that musty old Blackstone didn’t have a clue, did he?
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