The John Adams statement below was quoted by Judge Beryl A. Howard in her ruling against the government in a case brought by the law firm Perkins Coie to defend its right not to be punished for pursuing decisions adverse to the desires and edicts of the administration. –Case 1:25-cv-00716-BAH Document 185 Filed 05/02/25 Page 1 of 102

In 1770, John Adams made the singularly unpopular decision to represent eight British soldiers charged with murder for their roles in the Boston Massacre and “claimed later to have suffered the loss of more than half his practice.” DAVID MCCULLOUGH, JOHN ADAMS 68 (2001). “I had no hesitation,” he explained, since “Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want in a free Country”…

With one example, I want to highlight the importance of a single ordinary word to preserve clarity in our public documents and discourse. I refer to the word “want.”

 –In Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (a relic of my youth), the FIRST definition of the verb WANT is “to fail to possess: LACK.” eg. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

–The second and third definitions refer to liking, desiring, or needing. eg. I want something to eat.

–The fourth definition: to suffer from the lack of. eg. The homeless want [for] affordable housing.

The definition of WANT as a noun meaning, among several synonyms, POVERTY was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 in his Four Freedoms speech, captured in famous illustrations by Norman Rockwell: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear, Freedom from Want.

In our time, the second and third definitions of “want” as desiring or needing have prevailed. WANT as a noun or as an intransitive verb (see first and fourth definitions) appears rarely in colloquial speech.

Therein lies rub:

Might the statement “Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want in a free Country” be misconstrued to mean that an accused Person should not even ask for, let alone have a right to, Council?

A mere shift in common speech could result in a terrible mistake in Constitutional Law.

POTUS is not the only ignorant–and functionally illiterate–person in our country. 2024  statistics reveal:

21% of US adults are illiterate

54% of US adults have a literacy below the 6th grade level (20% below 5th grade)

https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now

Literacy matters. The details of language–like spelling, usage, and punctuation– make a difference. Please support excellence in Education as a top priority in your neighborhood, your state, and our nation. It could be a matter of life or death.