"It is better that ten guilty escape than that one innocent suffer."
- Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) English Writer on law
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765) IV, 27
"William Searle Holdsworth, one of Blackstone's successors as Vinerian Professor,
argued that 'If the Commentaries had not been written when they were written, I
think it very doubtful that [the United States], and other English speaking
countries would have so universally adopted the common law' In the United States,
the Commentaries influenced Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, James Wilson, John
Jay, John Adams, James Kent and Abraham Lincoln, and remain frequently cited in
Supreme Court decisions."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blackstone