John Adams vs. the Mob

I was eager to bring myself up to speed on America’s revolutionary history.

The most memorable story I heard during that tour was of a young John Adams, a future U.S. president, successfully defending Thomas Preston, a Captain of a redcoat British regiment who’d been accused of ordering the aforementioned massacre after British soldiers were hit with rocks and snowballs. When the administration of Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson put Preston and his men on trial, Adams agreed to serve as defence counsel, despite the fact he’d already staked out a reputation as a leading Patriot. Years later, he would declare that “the part I took in defence of [Captain] Preston and the soldiers, procured me anxiety and obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country. Judgment of death against those soldiers would have been as foul a stain upon this country as the executions of the Quakers or witches.”

Part of a piece chiding Harvard, and defending the ideal that even those accused of serious crimes deserve a proper defense. This ensures that the state exercises its power only when it has properly proven the charges, not merely when it has raised serious charges.

We could use more rather than less of that. The recent Mueller investigation was characterized by serious charges being used to justify extraordinary exercises of power (e.g., violating the attorney-client privilege of the President of the United States in order to raid his home and office, seize his documents, and read them). These accusations were rarely tested in court because of the plea bargain process, in which very easy terms were offered for a guilty plea compared with the severity of the punishments if you dared to contest the charges. A man of adequate honor might refuse to plead guilty when he was not, but perhaps not; given the ruinous cost of an extended defense to his family, even a man of high honor might choose to prefer harm to himself over harm to his family.

A lawyer might now begin to worry about offering a defense, if he might himself become the target of a prosecution or persecution thereby. We need more capability to defend those accused of serious crimes in an actual court-tested case, not a lessened capacity. This is a pillar of our liberty that is under tremendous stress.