University at Buffalo School of Law Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship Fall 2000 Framed: Utilitarianism and Punishment of the Innocent Guyora Binder University at Buffalo School of Law Nicholas J. Smith University of New Hampshire Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Guyora Binder & Nicholas J. Smith, Framed: Utilitarianism and Punishment of the Innocent, 32 Rutgers L.J. 115 (2000). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/285 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FRAMED: UTILITARIANISM AND PUNISHMENT OF THE INNOCENT GuyoraBinder*andNicholas J. Smith" I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................116 II. THE DEBATE OVER PUNISHING THE INNOCENT ...................123................. A. The Charge...................................................................................123 B. Five Responses .............................................................................127 1. Acceptance ...............................................................................127 2. Definitional Evasion ................................................................128 3. Minimization ................................129........................................... (a) Punishment of Associates .................................................130 (b) Punishment Based on Low Standards of Proof.................131 (c) Preventive Incapacitation ..................................................132 (d) Framing the Innocent ........................................................132 (i) An Institution ...............................................................132 (ii) An Individual Act ........................................................135 4. Comparison ..............................................................................136 5. Restriction, or Rule Utilitarianism ..................137........................ C. The State of the Debate.................................................................139 III. BENTHAM ON PUNISHING THE INNOCENT ...........................................140 A. "Unavoidable Mis-Seated" Punishment......................................141 B. "Collective" Punishment..............................................................144 C. "Apparent"Punishment...............................................................148 D. PublicDeception.........................................................................151 IV. UTILITY AN ETHICAL PRINCIPLE? .........................................................155 A. Utility in Bentham'sPredecessors...............................................156 1. Hume ........................................................................................156 2. Helvetius ..................................................................................159 3. Beccaria ...................................................................................162 • Professor of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo. Thanks are due to Barbara Fried, William Twining, Tom Grey, Richard Craswell, Mark Kelman, Joe Bankman, Amy Chua, David Mills, Bob Weisberg and other participants in the Stanford Law and Philosophy workshop, and to Pablo De Greiff, Markus Dubber, Louis Kaplow, Liam Murphy, Justin Schwartz and Jim Wooten for comments and suggestions. ** Law Clerk, Judge Nygaard, U.S.C.A. 3rd Cir.; J.D., Buffalo; Ph.D., Vanderbilt. Thanks are due to Nicole Smith for editorial advice. 115 RUTGERS LA W JOURNAL [Vol. 32:115 B. Bentham's Utility Principle.......................................................... 166 C. Bentham's InstitutionalAccount ofMorality............................... 168 V. UTILITY AS PROCESS AND DISCOURSE ................................................. 174 A. Security andProcedure.................................................................. 174 B. UtilitarianLanguagein the Policy Process................................. 176 1. Utilitarianism as a Rhetorical Project ...................................... 176 2. The Language of Law .............................................................. 178 3. The Language of Policy Reform ............................................. 182 VI. SECURITIES AGAINST MISRULE: LEGALITY, DEMOCRACY, PUBLICITY ........................................................................................... 184 A. Legality......................................................................................... 184 B. Democracy.................................................................................... 189 C. Publicity........................................................................................ 200 VII. INSTITUTIONAL UTILITARIANISM AND ETHICAL UTILITARIANISM ..... 210 A. UtilitarianismPenology asan Applicationof Institutional Utilitarianism................................................................................ 210 B. The Invention of Ethical Utilitarianism........................................ 214 C. The Revival ofInstitutionalUtilitarianism................................... 218 D. The BoundariesofInstitutionalUtilitarianism............................ 222 I. INTRODUCTION Utilitarian penology treats punishment as a costly instrument of public policy, permissible only when its benefits in reducing future crime outweigh the pain, fear, and public expense it imposes. According to utilitarian penology, therefore, the aim of maximizing welfare both justifies and limits the institution of punishment. While utilitarian penology has traditionally emphasized deterrence, reform and incapacitation as mechanisms by which punishment might reduce crime, it values any crime-inhibiting effect of punishment. Utilitarian penology also compares punishment to other policies which might achieve greater crime reductions at less social cost. Deterrence, for example might be most cost-effectively achieved by increasing the availability and benefits of lawful employment, or by technologies of law enforcement and urban design that increase the certainty of apprehension. Likewise, character reform might be better achieved by early education and by drug rehabilitation than by incarceration. Utilitarian penology has a distinguished history. Utilitarians such as Beccaria and Bentham championed such key reforms as the development of 20001 FRAMED: UTILITARIANISM AND PUNISHMENT police forces, comprehensive penal codes and penitentiaries, the abandonment of torture and corporal punishment, and reduced reliance upon capital punishment. Nevertheless, utilitarian penology has recently lost its luster, at least in the United States. The 1970's witnessed an explosion of retributivist thought among philosophers, legal scholars and publicists. Retributivists held that beneficial consequences provided neither a necessary nor a sufficient reason to punish, and that bad consequences provided neither a necessary nor a sufficient reason to refrain from punishing. Punishment could only be justified-and limited-by the moral desert of offenders. Retributivists participated in public debates over criminal justice policy, attacking probation, parole, indeterminate sentencing, rehabilitative programs, and determinist accounts of crime, whether invoked to excuse individuals I or to justify ameliorative social programs. 2 Retributivists promoted determinate sentencing and thereby contributed to the passage of the harsh federal sentencing guidelines. 3 Retribution was invoked by the Supreme Court as a constitutionally legitimate purpose of punishment in upholding the constitutionality of the death penalty.4 Retributivist attacks on utilitarian penology resonated with some sectors of the American public: retributive punishment bore witness to the inviolability and inflexibility of certain moral standards during an era of social change and cultural conflict. Increasing pessimism about the efficacy of government policy-particularly in influencing the behavior and life- chances of the poor-decreased public confidence that a combination of penal and social welfare measures could control crime. Popular perception painted urban centers as dangerous jungles in which anonymous offenders confronted little meaningful risk of apprehension, and were pathologically resistant to rational incentives. In the face of these public attitudes, criminal legislation seemed to shift from the domain of public policy to that of symbolic politics. 5 Rather than 1. Michael Moore, Causationandthe Excuses, 73 CAL. L. REV. 1091 (1985). 2. Stephen J. Morse, The Twilight of Welfare Criminology:A Reply to Judge Bazelon, 49 S. CAL. L. REV. 1247 (1976). 3. FRANCIS A. ALLEN, THE DECLINE OF THE REHABILITATIVE IDEAL: PENAL POLICY AND SOCIAL PURPOSE (1981); RICHARD SINGER, JUST DESERTS: SENTENCING BASED ON EQUALITY AND DESERT (1979); THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FUND TASK FORCE ON CRIMINAL SENTENCING, FAIR AND CERTAIN PUNISHMENT (1976); ANDREW VON HIRSCH, DOING JUSTICE: THE CHOICE OF PUNISHMENTS (1976). 4. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). 5. Markus Dirk Dubber, Recidivist Statutes as Arational Punishment, 43 BUFF.