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>It's possible for eyewitness testimony to be the #1 cause of wrongful convictions, but for there to be only e.g. 3 wrong convictions a year out of 100k trials.
by deadmetheny 9y ago
>It's possible for eyewitness testimony to be the #1 cause of wrongful convictions, but for there to be only e.g. 3 wrong convictions a year out of 100k trials. Which would probably be pretty "acceptable".
"It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." Three innocent people being punished is a travesty and in no way acceptable.
- pmarreck 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation actually says that it is better that 10, not 100, guilty go free. And sadly, in a world of imperfect information, it is arguable that 3 wrongly convicted innocents out of 100,000 trials is "acceptable," because you're never going to get to 100% precision/accuracy.
- deadmetheny 9y agoBenjamin Franklin's paraphrase of the principle says 100, which is my direct quote ;D I don't disagree that it's unrealistic to achieve 100% accuracy, but it should never be accepted - we should never, ever stop striving for improvement in this arena, and to err on the side of letting people go free if it can't be conclusively and impartially proven they are guilty.
- earenndil 9y agoLet's take this to an extreme. Let's get rid of incarceration and legal consequence entirely. Then you're to never wrongly convict someone, right? All other ways could and likely will end up with false positives.