There is the old adage that "better a hundred guilty men go free, than one innocent man suffer."

I wonder do you really think that this is true?

Would you rather sacrifice one man to keep those hundred put away, or is it truly more evil for the one innocent one to suffer?

Just looking for opinions. :)

I think it would really depend. What did the guilty people do? How harsh will the punishment be for the innocent?

But as a guiding principle for distributing justice I think it makes sense.

I would agree, it highly depends on the situation;
However, if I had to give a general answer, I'd rather say that I'd have the one innocent punished and the 100 guilty kept in jail.

I agree that it might depend on the guilty men's crimes. Say... a hundred shop lifters might not be worth the one innocent, but murderers, or some other kind of violent criminal. Would that make it more acceptable?

I must also wonder, if I were the innocent man, and knew that my being in prison kept a hundred murderers in jail, would I accept that fate, in order to make the world a better place?

I would like to say I'd rather let the innocent man rot than have to go round up 100 criminals again. Might seem a little harsh, but I don't really believe in things like innocence. You have good men and you have bad men, but at some point in life every man has done something that could be considered wrong. If they haven't yet, they will some day.

However, I'm not sure I would give my life for 100 guilty men. I'm having a hard time picturing why I would ever end up in that position anyway. I guess on that note it does seem like more of an injustice if the "innocent" man has never committed a criminally-punishable crime. I don't really know, I guess. I could look at this a few different ways to come up with a variety of answers.

I think I have to agree with everyone else who's said it would be a case-to-case matter. Most things should be handled that way anyway. If you set a standard for anything, eventually something will go wrong, I think.

I would think it better that the one innocent man suffer. I think that any beleiver in God would gladly be that innocent man as well. Why let the bad men go to make the world a nastier place, you would be sacrificing way more in the end by letting them go.

Would any true believer in God allow the single innocent man to suffer though?

I meant like if you were the innocent man being sacrificed. I don't think that other beleivers in God would? I don't know for sure you know. I think they would want to let them all go, and try making the best of that situation instead, trying to round them up again or something.

I would spare that one man.

He only has so much time. He shouldn't have to lose that precious time to a crime that he didn't commit.

The thing I can't help but think about is: what if that person was me or someone very close to me? It is so much easier for people to sacrifice a random stranger than it would be to sacrifice the ones they love. But also how much better off would the rest of the world be if those hundred men stayed locked up in prison. I would choose the needs of the many over the needs of one but it would never be an easy thing to do.

If it were me to be put in jail, and I was keeping a hundred criminals (for the purpose of my argument we assume violent ones, not shoplifters) in with me, I might just do it. I mean how many are you saving doing that? I could never ask someone else to do it though.

Entirely depends on the crime, I think, and doesn't that sound horrible?


I do think that the given choice is a false dichotomy-- we can build failsafes into the criminal justice system in order to give the innocent man a method of recourse. We can demand rigorous standards of proof and the utmost excellence in our judges...

But when it comes down to the dirty question, which would I rather risk?
In the case of nonviolent crime and a life sentence, I will let the hundred go free every time, and let the world exact its penance from them. The life of a criminal is not a beautiful one, in most instances. The world, and people, demand a certain balance of honesty eventually.
For violent crime, especially in instances involving children, I believe that society has the duty to jail and punish, severely, the 100 guilty-- even at risk of the one innocent man. Here's why: the price of lost innocence paid by society when those violent men go free-- the lost lives, the emotionally crippled children and women and men, the fear and the hate created by those 100 violent people-- destroys innocence at an endless and exponential rate. The crimes of those 100 violent men never end. The crime of imprisoning and accusing just one innocent man is still great: this destruction of innocence reverberates through society too, damaging that man's family as well as himself...

But you have to weigh that against the crimes of the 100, and the multiple communities 100 violent men would destroy.


It all seems so cold and calculated when phrased this way, but a justice system must do everything in its power to jail the one hundred. The innocent shouldn't be ignored, and convictions should never be frivolous-- but the duty of a justice system is to protect as much as humanly possible. Every human system will have error... but that is no reason to abandon the attempt at justice.


EDIT: Just to prove I have some semblance of a heart, I would like you to know that I bawled like a baby through much of The Shawshank Redemption.

Punishing an innocent for a crime is actually a double impact.

First of all, you ruin that person's life.

Second, since they were found guilty, the court will no longer look for the real perpetrator and the guilty man will go free.

So, while maybe it's not worth 100 guilty men going free, convicting an innocent man is worse than a guilty man getting off.

That depends entirely on the guilty man.

I can't help but agree with that statement. That one innocent man is forever ruined and he did nothing to deserve it. Even if he is later found to be innocent....it will have forever changed his life.

But you can take up "than one innocent man suffer". A large fine can for some be suffering too, but rarely has as much impact on one's life as jailtime does. Also, would the crimes of the 100 guilty and the supposed crime of the one innocent necessarily be the same? If the convincing of an innocent man happens because of a justice-system that assumes guilt too easily, the 100 guilty (of which some might have gone free without said system) may well be convicted for something else altogether than the one innocent-but-presumed-guilty man. If to keep a hundred heavy criminals in prison for a life time, an innocent has to pay a fine for something they did not do, or spend a few weeks in prison for a small crime they're not guilty of, the scales would balance out a lot different than if the hundred men are all or mostly shoplifters and the innocent man has to spend a life-time in prison for a gruesome murder they did not commit.

So I guess that my conclusion is that there are too many variables in the adage for me to completely agree or disagree,

i think if you are that one innocent person than you know you want the justice system to error on your side!
it is a catch twenty-two kind of thing.
but honestly i think i would rather make sure that one innocent person does not suffer.
it must feel like a vicious cycle for law makers, law enforcement and lawyers.
but if people were not out there trying to contain the evil men make then the world would already be lost.
i love the way DNA helps uliminate people from being wrongly accused

DNA testing has indeed made huge steps towards helping innocent people.

yeah it has.
one of OJ simpson's lawyers does a lot of good work getting innocent people released from jail with his DNA work.

Thats good. I feel horrible for those innocent people....churns my stomach.

Depends...what did the hundred guilty men do?

If they're all serial rapist/murderers...no. No, just no.

They smoke some weed/had enough to distribute (whether they did or not actually distribute)....then...I might agree with that.

On DNA: I believe there is a way to make it seem like it is your DNA. So even then you cannot trust it. I think it works by taking out the...white blood cells? Whichever cells have the DNA in blood and then put someone else's dna in.

I saw it on a TV show. If it isn't real yet, soon enough it will be and then? DNA is useless.

Originally Posted by Cat Eye

Depends...what did the hundred guilty men do?

If they're all serial rapist/murderers...no. No, just no.

They smoke some weed/had enough to distribute (whether they did or not actually distribute)....then...I might agree with that.

would you rather an innocent man get the death penalty? It HAS happened.

one innocent man's life vs. the lives taken or destroyed by one hundred rapists and murderers?

Go!

what if it is your innocent life?
or your loved one's innocent life?
or your child's innocent life?

Can you imagine the suffering of that one innocent life that sits in a jail cell waiting to die.