Blackstone Award

10:1 Blackstone’s Order

We are told that at the Alamo, a young Lieutenant Colonel by the name of William Barrett Travis Legend gazed out across the Texas prairie at Santa Anna's gathering forces and drew a line in the sand. Then, he asked all those who would stand with him to cross the line. "Talking about freedom," Travis had told them, "is always easier than coming face-to-face with a man who is trying to take it away."

Every day as public defenders and criminal defense lawyers in private practice, we come face-to-face with such men and women. They struggle to exonerate their clients in difficult cases against an oppressive and unbalanced criminal justice system. Moreover, often when they win a pivotal pre-trial motion, an acquittal at trial or a reversal on appeal, there is usually no one there to recognize their efforts. Nevertheless, we must recognize them.  These are the true Freedom Fighters in the never-ending battle to preserve the idea which is the American experiment.

These are the lawyers who remind judges and juries of the collateral damage that occurs to our society if we wage the war on crime with complete disregard to rights of individual liberty that so many have fought and died to preserve. These are the lawyers who implement Blackstone's ratio in the courtroom. These are the lawyers who remind judges, jurors and even skeptical prosecutors that it is "Better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." The vigilance of these lawyers is the price of our liberty.

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