That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
William BlackstoneRead
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
Interpretation
It's preferable for guilty individuals to go free than for an innocent person to be wrongfully punished.
This quote emphasizes the importance of justice and the moral principle that it is more acceptable for a guilty person to evade punishment than to harm an innocent individual. It highlights a fundamental tenet of legal systems: the protection of the innocent should be prioritized over the conviction of the guilty, as the latter can lead to irreversible harm and injustice.
In practice
This quote can be used in a courtroom setting to illustrate the importance of protecting the innocent.
That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.
Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.
The risk of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence.
But I wound like people to think I was an honest judge and a good judge. And I always tried the reach the best result in every case.
The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law.
I believe indeterminate sentencing can be extremely useful, but I also believe that any such system should always take into consideration the special knowledge as to the facts in a case which only the trial judge possesses.
Evil never goes unpunished, Monsieur. But the punishment is sometimes secret.
One of the things that pains me is we have so tragically underestimated the trauma, the hardship we create in this country when we treat people unfairly, when we incarcerate them unfairly, when we condemn them unfairly.
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