I recently discovered that John Adams was the lawyer to defend in trial the soliders who perpetrated the Boston Massacre — in which British soliders fired upon and killed American civilians. Given light of the recent Supreme Court trial reiterating the necessity of due process for all I find this information particularly poignant. Some of those fore-fathers (though flawed) were really damn good with things like parity.
Adams had this to say about the trial:
“The Part I took in Defence 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.”
