ATTRIBUTION:

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, letter to Benjamin Vaughan, March 14, 1785.The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert H. Smyth, vol. 9, p. 293 (1906).



He was echoing Voltaire, that generous Maxim, that tis much more Prudence to acquit two Persons, tho actually guilty, than to pass Sentence of Condemnation on one that is virtuous and innocent.Zadig, chapter 6, p. 53 (1749, reprinted 1974).



Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, 9th ed., book 4, chapter 27, p. 358 (1783, reprinted 1978), says, For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.