Leopold and Loeb Trial - The Clarence Darrow Collection

We therefore conclude that Richard Loeb is now mentally abnormal and
was so abnormal on May 21 st , 1924, and in so far as anyone can predict at
this time, will continue, perhaps with increasing gravity as time goes on.
Their study of the defendants as individuals led the team of doctors to conclusions about
the defendants as a team:
[The] criminal activities were the outgrowth of a unique coming-together
of two peculiarly maladjusted adolescents, each of whom brought into the
relationship a long-standing background of abnormal mental life. This has
made a situation so unique that it probably will never repeat itself. There is
justification for stressing the uniqueness of this case if, for no other
reason, than that it has created wide-spread panic among parents of young
people.
According to a 2007 account:
In exposing Leopold and Loeb to prying scientific instruments and the prying
public, the endless testing and psychiatric evidence both democratized them and
made them more controllable. The new psychology transformed them from
arrogant Nietzschean criminals (the early representation of Leopold) into
vulnerable boys (Loeb and his teddy bear) and linked them to ordinary boys of
America. 68
Sigmund Freud
Extensive efforts were made to entice the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud to travel
to the United States to observe the trial and write daily articles with analysis. The
Chicago Tribune offered Freud “$25,000 or anything he would name” to come to
Chicago and “psycho-analyse” Leopold and Loeb. 69 But Freud declined the invitation,
stating, “I cannot be supposed to be prepared to provide an expert opinion about persons
and a deed when I have only newspaper reports to go on and have no opportunity to make
a personal examination.” 70 Freud was also suffering from cancer at this time.
William Randolph Hearst also offered Freud “any sum he cared to name” to come and
analyze the defendants; he even offered to charter a special liner for Freud since he knew
he was ill, but Freud declined. 71 Bernard L. Diamond, a prominent forensic psychiatrist,
believed “Freud was always most cautious about the ‘half-baked’ application of
psychoanalytic concepts in legal proceedings, and most psychoanalysts seem to have
68
PAULA S. FASS, CHILDREN OF A NEW WORLD: SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND GLOBALIZATION 120 (2007).
69
ERNEST JONES, SIGMUND FREUD: LIFE AND WORK, THE LAST PHASE 1919-1939, Vol. 3, 109 (1957).
70
Id.
71
Id.
44