Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
We all have the problem of what do you do with the not-guilty-yet in free and democratic societies where you have the presumption of innocence. It's a very difficult problem.
I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty.
The penalty may be removed, the crime is eternal.
I don't have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.
It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted.
One threatens the innocent who spares the guilty.
Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.
Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.
Punishment is justice for the unjust.