This is straight up ridiculous! Most people believe they are special so by allowing one criminal to go free (since you convicted the wrong one) others will be emboldened!
If we accept, for the sake of argument, that we should be willing to send innocent people to prison as a deterrent, and we have three people who might have committed a given crime (with probability p=.3, .3, and .4, respectively, say), then perhaps we should send all three of them to prison as a deterrent?