I disagree, in principle. I'd rather one innocent suffer such that 10 guilty men do not escape justice (and likely cause greater suffering in the long run). Even were the innocent to be me, i objectively say it is better that way for society as a whole.
Note - this doesn't mean i would be happy, or wouldn't attempt to rectify, or generally complain were I punished in innocence. Merely that I would agree it is better on average.
Where this all falls to pieces, is with numbers. how about 50 innocent punished such that 51 guilty do not escape justice and so on and so forth. Where is the line drawn? How do you enforce it? For this I have no robust argument, if one can even be made.
Society is worse off if Blackstone's Ratio is not followed. The harm caused by a criminal act is not equivalent to the harm caused by a wrongful conviction: the former is unambiguously illegitimate whereas the latter is legitimate and supported by the government in the name of the people. Society has many ways of mitigating the effects of crime: we have insurance, victim support groups, etc. But if you're wrongly convicted, you have nothing. After all, you're a "criminal" not a victim and that's how you'll always be remembered.
The exact number of guilty people in the ratio doesn't matter. No one can agree on it, and it's impossible to quantify the harm anyways. It's really more about the idea of fair trials and the presumption of innocence, which is a handbrake against tyranny. It's a warning that the fear of letting guilty people go must not be used to justify diminishing the presumption of innocence. This is why Blackstone's Ratio was supported by people like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams whereas a "reverse" Blackstone's Ratio (better to let X innocent people suffer than let one guilty person escape) was embraced by such delightful people as Otto von Bismarck, Feliks Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Soviet secret police), and Pol Pot.
Most of the cases where Blackstone's forumulation comes in are where the justice system thinks its job done after the innocent is punished. Texas, for instance, has resisted the checking of DNA evidence because (in part) it would bring up the emotional wounds to the victim. In that case, however, you are not punishing one innocent and ten guilty men; you are punishing one innocent and letting the guilty go free.
Note - this doesn't mean i would be happy, or wouldn't attempt to rectify, or generally complain were I punished in innocence. Merely that I would agree it is better on average.
Where this all falls to pieces, is with numbers. how about 50 innocent punished such that 51 guilty do not escape justice and so on and so forth. Where is the line drawn? How do you enforce it? For this I have no robust argument, if one can even be made.