This paper proposes new grounds for the legal ambivalence about ‘bad character evidence’. It is suggested that errors based on such evidence are profoundly tragic in the Aristotelian sense: the defendant who previously committed crime is likely to reoffend; nevertheless, she beats the odds and refrains from further crime commission – only to then be falsely convicted based on the very odds she has almost heroically managed to beat. It is further proposed that the tragic nature of such false convictions might make them particularly unfair to the defendant. It is, however, submitted that the likelihood of errors based on such evidence is unknown and probably also unknowable. Accordingly, the maximin rule for decision in conditions of deep ignorance is applied, leading to the conclusion that exclusion is to be preferred.

中文翻译：

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'坏性格'，悲惨的错误和深深的无知

本文为“不良品格证据”的法律矛盾提供了新的依据。有人认为，基于此类证据的错误在亚里士多德意义上是极其悲惨的：先前犯罪的被告很可能再次犯罪；尽管如此，她还是克服了困难，避免了进一步的犯罪行为——只是因为她几乎英勇地克服的可能性而被错误地定罪。进一步提出，这种虚假定罪的悲剧性质可能使它们对被告特别不公平。然而，有人提出，基于此类证据的错误可能性是未知的，也可能是不可知的。因此，应用了在深度无知条件下决策的最大规则，从而得出排除是首选的结论。