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Cardinal Pell and the Burden of Proof
The conviction of the guilty is just; it is the unremarkable business of a just criminal jurisprudence; but the conviction of the innocent strikes at the heart of justice. If it happens through error or negligence, it is bad enough; when it happens by design, it is an abomination that corrodes trust in the law itself.
Maimonides in the 12th century, in this commentary on Exodus 23:7 (Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked) concluded, “it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death once in a way.”
Practical men, especially those who reasonably expect never to suffer the consequences of flawed jurisprudence, have taken a more pragmatic view than Maimonides. So English Chief Justice John Fortesque, in 1471, revised the number drastically. “Indeed I would rather wish twenty evil doers to escape death through pity, than one man to be unjustly…
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