One of the pundits associated with the recent Casey Anthony murder trial and resulting” shocking” verdict, repeated this adage attributed to Benjamin Franklin, ”It is better one hundred guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.” We have all probably heard this before.
However, I have always disagreed with ‘ole Ben and here’s why:
I heard that something like 39% of all homicides go unsolved (the figure for 2007 if we can believe police records). So, of all the murderers let go for reasons like excluded evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, bleeding heart juries, etc., let’s say only 10% of them go out and kill again. I think that’s a conservative number since they are even more likely to kill, after having gotten away with it once already. And the resulting murder will have been committed by someone who learned from their mistakes. You can bet, for instance, Casey Anthony will not use her home computer next time to research chloroform, arsenic, strangulation or anything else incriminating.
Hence I can translate Ben Franklin’s alleged viewpoint into, “It’s better to kill 10 innocent people than it is to kill one (by executing him or her).”
Just my $.02.
July 6, 2011 at 3:57 pm |
The gist of this seems to be that, despite the fact that Ms Anthony was acquitted of capital murder, Lee has concluded that she might have been guilty and thus should be put to death. It is unclear whether she should be executed for the death–I would not say homicide–for which she was acquitted, or for hypothetical future homicides that she might commit. This is an argument that, as Lee correctly notes, Franklin would not have accepted, but that all the great mass murderers of the 20th century–Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot–embraced.
July 7, 2011 at 12:35 am |
I may not have been as clear as I could have been. The instances of acquittals I was referring to would have to have involved, ” . . . excluded evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, bleeding heart juries.” Examples would be, as with OJ, a jury who wanted to make sure no brother ever was convicted on evidence partially gathered by a prejudiced white police officer regardless of guilt or, my favorite, a confessed murderer who is released because the cops forgot to read him his rights prior to the confession. In that case, I say fine the cop x number of months worth of salary or suspend him/her for whatever period of time seems appropriate but don’t let the killer go free and possibly kill one of my family members . . . or dedicated blog commentors.
July 28, 2011 at 8:51 pm |
Actually, that is not the gist at all. My objection was the math involved in the quote itself. I would think you would object as well. My objection is that the number of criminals that must be let go to obtain a good system of justice, is too high. I would think you would believe it to be too low. Not true? Once 100 criminals, on average, are let go, are you really prepared to convict the 101st one even though he or she is not totally, completely, and utterly innocent? No, of course not. How about 150 then? Or 1,000? No, 10,000 dammit! If you really are not prepared to ever convict an innocent person, just to be safe we should release even a confessed murderer who tells police–after being advised to hire someone who will explain to him or her why it is not a good idea to tell the truth at this stage–where the body is buried, exactly where on the body stab wounds will be found, and where the butcher knife with serrated blade has been buried that is covered in the blood of the victim, albeit not the DNA of the murderer. Why take a chance? Release is demanded in this case so as to avoid the 1-in-9999 possibility the real murderer explained all this to the defendant before police made the collar.
July 6, 2011 at 4:57 pm |
“It is better to execute an innocent person than to let an “enemy of the people” go free.” Standard operating procedure for the Russian Communists in the thirties (or Chinese in the fifties… or Khmer Rouge in the 70s…). Fine ideals to aspire to, Lee.
BTW. The quote is correctly attributed. (Source: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, letter to Benjamin Vaughan, March 14, 1785.—The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert H. Smyth, vol. 9, p. 293 (1906).)
July 7, 2011 at 1:02 am |
Thanks for your input Dima. I respect that the US Constitution is perhaps more appreciated by someone with your heritage.
But I was merely pointing out a possible exaggeration in Benny’s quote. Maybe I can be a little more specific. Suppose we substitute 1,000 for 100?. Would you still agree with his axiom? Yes? Then how about 10,000? What if we raised the standard of conviction to “guilty beyond any shadow or even a single iota of doubt? Now we are maybe releasing 10,000 killers to every one we convict but the one conviction is a rock solid, no possibility of mistake conviction. This accused was filmed in high definition committing the murder with good lighting using a gun he bought the day before from a gun dealer whom he told why he wanted it. And all that was recorded as well complete with sound. So I’m just saying right now, we are releasing too many killers what with all the oftentimes outrageous rules of evidence, required police procedures, etc.
I would suggest this as a piece of common ground: How about if we substitute 10 for the 100 that walk free? We lower the rules of evidence a bit, perhaps select juries totally at random as opposed to cherry picking them, declare mistrials a little less often, etc. Then the math works out to, “It’s better to kill one innocent person than it is to kill one innocent person.” Else we have, “It’s better to kill 10, 100, 1000–you name it–than one.” Deal?
Oh, and by the way, I believe the prosecution failed to meet even my relaxed standards of proof in the Casey Anthony trial. I even predicted she would be acquitted. I am only taking issue with the quote attributed to Ben Franklin (which I believe originated elsewhere).
July 7, 2011 at 3:07 pm
For the common ground, can’t we just agree not to kill anyone?
Seriously though, what you are talking about is eliminating important safeguards that can be used to protect you. Yes, YOU. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. You (or I, or one of your kids) may be accused of a crime someday. Why are you so eager to give up your rights? Just because someone got away with murder?
Believe me, if you or someone in your family ever find yourself in the defendant’s chair, you wouldn’t want those “outrageous” standards for evidence “relaxed”. And you’d want those pesky police procedures followed to the letter. And you don’t want an overzealous prosecutor lying to the jury. As for jury selection, let’s just say that if you are accused of a sexual assault, you probably wouldn’t want all women jury.
– “So I’m just saying right now, we are releasing too many killers what with all the oftentimes outrageous rules of evidence, required police procedures, etc.” –
I am sorry, but that is simply not true. The United States has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate ) Five times that of China, and this is with all the human rights abuses that happen there. It seems that even with the current standards for evidence, police procedures, etc. US law enforcement is really good at putting people behind bars.
As for the Benjamin Franklin quote, he certainly wrote it in one of his letters. It looks like Voltaire wrote something similar, and the true origin of it is probably much older.
Sorry for the rant.
–
D
July 6, 2011 at 6:50 pm |
Right on Lee, thanks for sharing your wisdom!
John McCarthy
July 7, 2011 at 10:10 pm |
This topic brings to mind the State of Texas. They put more death row criminals to their final resting place than any other State in the Union. They also have the highest rate of convicting people for crimes they did not commit, after DNA testing (60 Minutes). So, the question begs an answer, “How many people has they put to death, that later were determined to be innocent? I cannot recall if it was given by the 60 Minutes Staff.
I do believe that Texas does not think twice about their decisions or mistakes.
July 9, 2011 at 10:52 pm |
What if it was just one. Would you be OK with that . . . for the greater good?
Also, I wonder how many people spent 20 years in prison only to be later acquitted? Are you in favor of occasionally jailing some innocent person for 20 years once in a while if it means taking a lot of criminals off the street? Once solution to make absolutely sure no one ever gets imprisoned falsely is to never imprison anyone. Would you agree with that fail safe plan?