United States Law Reporter

John Adams Takes the Case: 

America First Defense Attorney

It is difficult to understand the job of a Criminal Defense Attorney because they are often charged with defending and assisting those who have made terrible mistakes.  On other occasions they must represent people who have been demonized by the media before a shred of proof had been presented.  American Patriot and President John Adams set the standard for all Criminal Defense Attorneys to follow when he stood up and defended the people most hated in America at the time.  The British Army.  And not just any solider in the army but the leader of the so called Boston Massacre.  

No American Attorney was willing to defend the soldiers accused of killing innocent civilians in the shooting.  Adams, however, understood that in order for a system of justice to ever succeed everyone must have access to an attorney willing to  defend their rights.

After a heated trial the British Captain was found Not Guilty.  Adams had set the standard for all that would follow.  

From John Adams Personal Journal

"The next Morning I think it was [i.e., 6 March 1770], sitting in my Office, near the Steps of the Town house Stairs, Mr. [James] Forrest came in, who was then called the Irish Infant. I had some Acquaintance with him. With tears streaming from his Eyes, he said I am come with a very solemn Message from a very unfortunate Man, Captain Preston in Prison. He wishes for Council, and can get none.

I have waited on Mr. [Josiah] Quincy, who says he will engage if you will give him your Assistance: without it positively he will not.  Even Mr. [Robert] Auchmuty declines unless you will engage. . . .

I had no hesitation in answering that Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want [i.e., be without] in a free Country. That the Bar ought in my opinion to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance. And that Persons whose Lives were at Stake ought to have the Council they preferred: But he must be sensible this would be as important a Cause as ever was tried in any Court or Country of the World: and that every Lawyer must hold himself responsible not only to his Country, but to the highest and most infallible of all Trybunals for the Part he should Act.

He must therefore expect from me no Art or Address, No Sophistry or Prevarication in such a Cause; nor any thing more than Fact, Evidence and Law would justify. Captain Preston he said requested and desired no more: and that he had such an Opinion, from all he had heard from all Parties of me, that he could cheerfully trust his Life with me, upon those Principles.

And said Forrest, as God almighty is my judge I believe him an innocent Man. I replied that must be ascertained by his Tryal, and if he thinks he cannot have a fair Trial of that Issue without my Assistance, without hesitation he shall have it.

Upon this, Forrest offered me a single Guinea as a retaining fee and I readily accepted it. From first to last I never said a Word about fees, in any of those Cases, and I should have said nothing about them here, if Calumnies and Insinuations had not been propagated that I was tempted by great fees and enormous sums of Money.

Before or after the Trial, Preston sent me ten Guineas and at the Tryal of the Soldiers afterward Eight Guineas more, which were all the fees I ever received or were offered to me, and I should not have said any thing on the subject to my Clients if they had never offered me any Thing.

This was all the pecuniary Reward I ever had for fourteen or fifteen days labor, in the most exhausting and fatiguing Causes I ever tried: for hazarding a Popularity very general and very hardly earned: and for incurring a Clamour and popular Suspicions and prejudices, which are not yet worn out and never will be forgotten as long as History of this Period is read.

For the Experience of all my Life has proved to me, that the Memory of Malice is faithful, and more, it continually adds to its Stock; while that of Kindness and Friendship is not only frail but treacherous. It was immediately bruited abroad that I had engaged for Preston and the Soldiers, and occasioned a great clamour which the Friends of Government delighted to hear, and slyly and secretly fomented with all their Art."

This is an inspiring account of a criminal lawyer speaking up for both the right to have a qualified an impartial attorney.  It also demonstrates the power of a jury trial to determine the truth—in spite of both mob mentality and the blind media.    

John Adams:  Criminal Defense Attorney for the British Solider in the Boston Massacre Trial

America citizens were dead and the government was determined to give the soldiers a fair trial so there could be no grounds for retaliation from the British and so that moderates would not be alienated from the Patriot cause.

A problem was that no lawyers in the Boston area wanted to defend the soldiers, as they believed it would be a huge career mistake.A challenge that still faces many criminal defense attorneys today.

A desperate request was sent to John Adams from Preston, pleading for him to work on the case. Adams, who was already a leading Patriot and who was contemplating a run for public office, nevertheless agreed to help, in the interest of ensuring a fair trial. Adams, Josiah Quincy II, and Robert Auchmuty acted as the defense attorneys, with Sampson Salter Blowers helping by investigating the jury pool.[24] It is not known whether Paul Revere was present at the Massacre, though he drew a detailed map of the bodies to be used in the trial of the British soldiers held responsible.[25] Massachusetts Solicitor General Samuel Quincy and private attorney Robert Treat Paine, hired by the town of Boston, handled the prosecution. To let passions settle, the trial was delayed for months, unusual in that period, and the jurymen were all chosen from towns outside Boston. Tried on his own, Preston was acquitted after the jury was not convinced that he had ordered the troops to fire. His trial lasted from October 24, 1770 to October 30, 1770.
In the trial of the soldiers, which opened November 27, 1770, Adams argued that if the soldiers were endangered by the mob, which he called "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs,"[26] they had the legal right to fight back, and so were innocent. If they were provoked but not endangered, he argued, they were at most guilty of manslaughter. The jury agreed with Adams and acquitted six of the soldiers. Two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter because there was overwhelming evidence that they fired directly into the crowd, however Adams invoked Benefit of clergy in their favor: by proving to the judge that they could read by having them read aloud from the Bible, he had their punishment, which would have been a death sentence, reduced to branding of the thumb in open court. The jury's decisions suggest that they believed the soldiers had felt threatened by the crowd. Patrick Carr, the fifth victim, corroborated this with a deathbed testimony delivered to his doctor.
Diary entry of John Adams concerning his involvement in the trials

March 5, 1773:
(The third anniversary of the Boston Massacre)
"I. . .devoted myself to endless labour and Anxiety if not to infamy and death, and that for nothing, except, what indeed was and ought to be all in all, sense of duty. In the Evening I expressed to Mrs. Adams all my Apprehensions:That excellent Lady, who has always encouraged me, burst into a flood of Tears, but said she was very sensible of all the Danger to her and to our Children as well as to me, but she thought I had done as I ought, she was very willing to share in all that was to come and place her trust in Providence.
"Before or after the Tryal, Preston sent me ten Guineas and at the Tryal of the Soldiers afterwards Eight Guineas more, which were. . .all the pecuniary Reward I ever had for fourteen or fifteen days labour, in the most exhausting and fatiguing Causes I ever tried: for hazarding a Popularity very general and very hardly earned: and for incurring a Clamour and popular Suspicions and prejudices, which are not yet worn out and never will be forgotten as long as History of this Period is read...It was immediately bruited abroad that I had engaged for Preston and the Soldiers, and occasioned a great clamor....
"The Part I took in Defense of Cptn. 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, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.
"This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing Armies."[27]

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John Adams Criminal Defense Attorney