The Unbreakable Standard of Fair Trial: Why John Adams’ 1770 Defense Still Haunts Modern Courts

As America marks its 250th anniversary, one of the most enduring lessons of the Founding Fathers remains as urgent as ever: a free society depends on the belief that everyone has the right to a fair trial.

A historic law courtroom, restored to its early 1900s appearance, stands in St. Louis’ Old Court House—the site of the landmark Dred Scott slavery trial.

When British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston on March 5, 1770, killing five colonists, public outrage swept through Massachusetts. John Adams took the unpopular case because he believed that even the despised were entitled to counsel and a fair trial. His famous warning that “facts are stubborn things” captured a simple but vital idea: justice cannot survive if verdicts are driven by passion alone.

Adams skillfully defended Captain Thomas Preston and then, in a separate trial, the eight soldiers. The jury acquitted six soldiers and convicted two of manslaughter. Adams later wrote that his legal defense was one of the best things he ever did for his country because he believed the jury had been right. He also believed that if the jury ruled differently, it would have been a “stain” on the country.

That principle is still being tested. Americans increasingly debate whether juries can remain impartial in high-profile cases shaped by race, politics, and media intensity. It is hard for people to believe that verdicts can be fair when there have been so many poorly decided cases.

For example, in 1640, John Punch was an African indentured servant in Virginia who tried to escape with two white indentured servants. After they were caught, the Virginia court issued a racist verdict: John Punch was sentenced to lifetime indentured servitude, while the two white men who ran away with him received only four additional years of indentured service.

Nearly three centuries later, the Emmett Till case exposed another injustice in Mississippi. In 1955, despite evidence that many contemporaneous observers believed was sufficient to support a conviction, an all-white jury acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam of Till’s murder after a brief deliberation. According to Tuskegee University archives, 539 Black people were lynched in Mississippi from 1882 to 1968; nationally, 3,446 Black people were lynched in that same period. The unjust Emmett Till verdict became a defining symbol of racial injustice and helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.

Then came the O.J. Simpson trial, where many legal observers believed the physical and DNA evidence strongly favored conviction. In a later interview with Barbara Walters, Robert Shapiro acknowledged that the defense did “play the race card” and “dealt it from the bottom of the deck.” Robert Shapiro pointed out that Johnnie Cochran took over as lead counsel and drove the strategy in a more overtly racial direction.

Today, similar questions surround politically charged prosecutions, including those involving President Donald Trump. Alvin Bragg signaled his bias during the 2021 campaign for New York County District Attorney when he said, “I believe we have to hold him accountable. I haven’t seen all the facts beyond the public, but I’ve litigated with him and so I’m prepared to go where the facts take me once I see them, and hold him accountable.”

Prosecutors should avoid making public statements suggesting a person should be held accountable before they have reviewed all the available evidence in a particular criminal case. Public confidence depends not only on impartial justice, but on the appearance of impartiality as well. Beyond the political prosecutors, juries are also a problem. The answer is not to pretend juries are perfect. They are not.

Jurors bring experience, bias, and perspective into the courtroom, and no legal system can remove human judgment entirely. Our legal system depends on a shared conviction that evidence, not ideology, is supposed to decide the outcome. John Adams did not defend the British soldiers because he approved of British rule. He defended them because he understood that the right to a fair trial is what separates a republic governed by the rule of law from one governed by political vengeance.

Adams understood that the true test of justice is not whether we protect the rights of those we admire, but whether we protect the rights of those we despise. If we want to honor the Founders’ legacy, we must treat jury duty as one of the highest responsibilities of citizenship and decide cases on evidence rather than race, politics, or ideology.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we require him to obey it.” Adams understood that in 1770. It is just as important in 2026.