Blackstone's ratio
[5] Defending British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre, John Adams also expanded upon the rationale behind Blackstone's Ratio when he stated: We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer.
But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security.
"[7] Some 300 years before Fortescue, the Jewish legal theorist Maimonides wrote that "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.
"[7][8][9] Maimonides argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would progressively lead to convictions merely "according to the judge's caprice" and was expounding on both Exodus 23:7 ("do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right") and an Islamic text, the Jami' al-Tirmidhi.
A vaguely similar principle, echoing the number ten and the idea that it would be preferable that many guilty people escape consequences than a few innocents suffer them, appears as early as the narrative of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis (at 18:23–32),[7] Abraham drew near, and said, "Will you consume the righteous with the wicked?
"[12] With respect to the destruction of Sodom, the text describes it as ultimately being destroyed, but only after the rescuing of most of Lot's family, the aforementioned "righteous" among a city or overwhelming wickedness who, despite the overwhelming guilt of their fellows, were sufficient by their mere presence to warrant a "stay of execution" of sorts for the entire region, slated to be destroyed for being uniformly a place of sin.
"[14] The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky in his work The Brothers Karamazov,[15][16] written in 1880, referred to the phrase "It is better to acquit ten guilty than to punish one innocent!"
"), which has existed in Russian legislation since 1712, during the reign of Peter the Great[17][18] Even Voltaire in 1748 in the work of Zadig used a similar saying, although in French his thought is stated differently than in the English translation: "It is from him that the nations hold this great principle, thet it is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent man."
It has been claimed that the Ratio contains the message that government and the courts must err on the side of bringing in verdicts of innocence, and that this has remained constant.
[citation needed] Given that Sir Matthew Hale and Sir John Fortescue in English law had made similar statements previously, some kind of explanation is required for the enormous popularity and influence of the phrase across all the legal systems derived from English law in the wake of the publication of Blackstone's Commentaries.
Today, its former role in justifying the policies of the criminal courts is primarily occupied by Herbert L. Packer's Two Models theory, an expanded doctrine of rights, and arguments drawn from law and economics.
[24] However, Daniel Epps argues that this is too simplistic, ignoring such factors as jury behaviour, plea bargains, appeals procedures, and "the percentage of innocent persons among the pool of charged defendants".
For example Daniel Epps and Laura Appleman exchanged arguments against and in favour of its continuing influence in the Harvard Law Review in 2015.
[34] He notes its importance in the inspiration of Western criminal law, but concludes by citing a question of its soundness: The story is told of a Chinese law professor, who listened as a British lawyer explained that Britons were so enlightened that they believed it was better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be executed.
