Standing in a courtroom before his fellow Bostonians on Dec. 3, 1770, John Adams began his closing argument in defense of the eight British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. He declared, “I am for the prisoners at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Beccaria: ‘If I can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessings and tears of transport shall be a sufficient consolation for me for the contempt of all mankind.’”
Adams continued, explaining that regardless of the Redcoats’ unpopularity, the presumption of innocence, and concomitant legal defense under that presumption, is the sine qua non of justice. “When innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned,” Adams warned, facts and behavior can become immaterial, “for virtue itself is no security. … And if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security whatsoever.”
