Because of Independence Day, we were motivated to watch the outstanding series, John Adams on HBO GO.
In the very first episode, John Adams was hired as counsel to defend the British soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre.
It is an amazing trial. Watch the closing arguments made by the prosecution.
Duty to retreat.
In fact, the entire argument made by the prosecution: that the soldiers are guilty of murder because they went out armed and didn’t run away when face with violent attackers could be made by the prosecution today in Boston against any citizen who manages to get a MA license to carry and uses it in self-defense.
This is why stand your ground so so important. Duty to retreat has been the tool to strip people of their ability to defend themselves in America since before we were a country.
And it speaks to Adams’ integrity, that he defended them, and, indeed, did not simply “phone it in”.
It also speaks as to how much of an insult it was when the Intolerable Acts were passed, particularly the Administration of Justice Act (which allowed the royal governor to order trials of royal officials moved to elsewhere in the British Empire if he thought the defendant couldn’t get a fair trial in the colonies).
Talk about a slap in Adams’s face.
It speaks to the tolerance of our nation as a whole that he later became a Founding Father. Today, he would be canceled out of existence for doing his job as a lawyer.