The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
are not dealing with the question of a legal defense
at all. Dr. White, in his book, says:
Insanity should not be used as a medical term at all.
It is solely a legal and sociological concept, and so
used to designate those members of the community who
are so far from able to adjust themselves to the ordinary
social requirements that the community segregates them,
forcibly perhaps, and takes away their rights as citizens.
Insanity is a form of social inadequacy, which medically
may be the result of many varieties of mental
disease.
Messrs. Church, Patrick and Krohn failed to
comply with any of the conditions laid down in
Dr. Church's book for the making of a psychiatric
examination. They stopped when they found no
proof of disease. They did not look for any disease,
although they were put on notice of its possible
existence by the circumstances of the crime.
Just take the other side of that picture. The
same facts, if your Honor please, as regards this
crime, served notice on counsel for the defense of
the same question, namely, the presence of mental
disease, that they served upon the State's Attorney.
And the defense arranged with a number of able
and distinguished men to make an examination of
these boys, with a view of ascertaining their mental
condition and reporting that mental condition to us.
They had the facilities offered in the jail in the
form of a private cell, large enough for the purpose
of their examinations, where they had privacy, and
IIS