Give me that old-time retribution Sublimation: a feature or a bug? One has to wonder with the obsessive attention Americans pay to the sex others are having, to gender nonconformity, and especially to extrajudicial punishment. Brandon Garrett and Gregory Mitchell ponder findings that suggest Americans’ adherence to Sir William Blackstone’s principle that it is “better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer” is slipping. If their faith in due process was ever there. Researchers asked if at trial it was worse if an innocent was convicted, a guilty person went free, or if both were equally bad. (Slate): Most respondents answered that the errors were equally bad. Our first results showing widespread rejection of the Blackstone ratio were so surprising and potentially disruptive that we tested their robustness multiple times, using a series of large samples drawn from the entire U.S. population and multiple measurement methods. Across multiple national surveys sampling more than 12,000 people, we have found that a majority of Americans, more than 60 percent, consider false acquittals and false convictions to be equally bad outcomes. Most people are not Blackstonians. They are unwilling to err on the side of letting the guilty go free to avoid convicting the innocent. Indeed, a sizeable minority viewed false acquittals as worse than false convictions; this group is willing to convict multiple innocent persons to avoid letting one guilty person go free. You would not want those people on your jury if you were charged with a crime.…