Better to set 10 guilty people free than to convict a single innocent one?
By dream_ozn
@dream_ozn (1754)
Singapore
February 14, 2012 6:10am CST
Hi people,
I was reading through my introduction to law textbook and came across this sentence.
"It is better to set 10 guilty people free than to convict a single innocent one."
What do you think of this sentence? What happens if the judge were to let a guilty person go and this person stays out there in the society and he/she exist as a harm to the society.
Yet, on the other hand, if an innocent person was sentenced to prison, it would indeed be a really sad thing.
A dilemma here indeed. is it justifiable to set 10 people guilty free just to prevent the courts from sentencing one innocent wrongly?
4 responses
@megamatt (14291)
• United States
16 Feb 12
That is a rather interesting statement to say the least and it really does depend on what they are guilty for. Shoplifting, yeah they might not be the most model citizens, but they are mostly harmless. Murderers and rapists on the other hand, not so much. I doubt that anyone is going to call for them to be released any time soon and releasing ten of them free onto society would be about on the same level.
Then again, circumstances tend to dictate that sometimes sentencing an innocent person is way worse than letting ten guilty people free. It truthfully depends on the crime. And there are many people imprisoned for a wide variety of crimes. It is not a simple cut and dry situation as many of us I'm sure would like to assume that it is. There are many different variables. It is not simple, sadly enough.
@dream_ozn (1754)
• Singapore
21 Feb 12
You are right megamatt, it's the magnitude of the crime that's important here as well.
If it's a simple crime such as shoplifting or jaywalking, they are mostly harmless like what you mention, then there's not much of an issue here if they are not convicted. The issues i guess is if they committed extensive crime such as murdering etc.
Yes, the law is complex and there is definitely not a black and white situation. there are may grey areas indeed. Sadly enough but this is just the real world and what else can we do other than to accept this sad fact :)
@deodavid (4150)
• Philippines
15 Feb 12
Hithere dream_ozn,
I think this is not a consequential thing like to set an innocent we must release 10 criminals i think that what i the quote trying to say is that it is worse to convict someone of something that they have not done than release someone that is guilty. Good defense lawyers nowadays find ways how to take care of avoiding to make there guilty clients pay for what they have done. SO if that is the case why shouldn't it be for those innocent one's right. But in my opinion no one should be imprisoned if they did nothing wrong and for those that did should rot.
@dream_ozn (1754)
• Singapore
21 Feb 12
Yes, you are right, this is just a quote trying to tell us that we should try to protect innocent people as much as possible because the consequence of going to jail can be very detrimental to one.
However, i don't understand what you mean by good defense lawyer find ways how to take care of avoiding to make there guilty clients pay for what they have done?
If the lawyer are representing the defendant, then how is he/she able to find ways to prevent his/her client from being sentenced if the defendant has indeed committed a crime?
@Linda4ualways (2282)
• United States
14 Feb 12
If I had to choose one I would choose to let go ten people. The could have small crimes like smoking in non smoking areas. nothing to big like hurting someone else.
@dream_ozn (1754)
• Singapore
21 Feb 12
You are right, we are also talking about the magnitude of the crime here.
If it is trivial crime such as smoking in non-smoking area, then definitely it would be much better to let them go free if they are indeed caught doing so.
However, I think in this case, because it is a simple crime, there is no need to prove mens reus. Only actus reus, which means that as long as the person is seen/caught doing that thing, he or she can be charged.
Opps, i'm no legal expert here. But I'm currently taking business law 101 now and therefore and trying to apply it into our conversation. Anyone who has a better knowledge please correct me if i am wrong!
@lampar (7584)
• United States
21 Feb 12
In reality, the judge here can not convict an innocent defender in our system of justice without going through all the evidences and procedure, convince himself enough, come to the conclusion that defender deserve a guilty verdict in jury-less trial. It is near impossible for judge to convict someone at his whim unless through the misconduct of prosecutor to cover up evidences and mislead the court for a wrongful conviction. Both scenario are not very likely to happen in a real world and the choice is hard to make. 
