The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
pose a death penalty in this case. There is no such
law.
Your Honor has been given the discretion, in
cases where pleas of guilty are entered, to fix a
penalty anywhere between a minimum and a maximum
term of years, or at death.
Your Honor stands in the relationship of a father
to these defendants. Every judge does. Every
man in his heart knows that the judge on the bench
is his father; his punisher, when he is wrong; that
he must come before him and receive his chastise-
ment. But when he comes before his legal father
on a plea of guilty, that father is faced with the
duty which every father has of desiring understand-
ing of the wrongdoer, and what it was that brought
about the situation, before the punishment is in-
flicted. It is so easy to hang; the important prob-
lem is put out of sight. It requires more intelligence
to investigate.
Your Honor, don't the very circumstances of this
crime, the details of which we have heard recited
here a number of times — recited with emphasis,
with adverbs and adjectives — don't these circum-
stances show abnormal mental condition?
Let us start, if your Honor please, with the first
of June. By that time the confessions of the boys
were in and had been fully corroborated. And the
first thing the State's Attorney did, if your Honor
please, was to have what Mr. Darrow designated as
a " roundup." He sent out his call for his aHenists.
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