The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
cause he knew the difference between right and
wrong. Death sentences for as low as fourteen
years have been cited. I have heard in the last
six weeks nothing but the cry for blood. I have
heard from the office of the State's Attorney only
ugly hate. I have seen a court urged almost to the
point of threats to hang two boys, in the face of
science, in the face of philosophy, in the face of
humanity, in the face of experience, and all the
better and more humane thought of the age.
My friend, Mr. Marshall, who dug up from the
relics of the buried past these precedents that would
bring a blush of shame to the face of a savage,
could also have read this from his beloved Black-
stone: that, under fourteen, though an infant should
be judged to be incapable of guile prima facie, yet
if it appeared to the court and the jury that he was
capable of guile, and could discern between good
and evil, he might be convicted and suffer death.
Thus a girl, thirteen, has been burned for killing
her mistress. One boy of ten, and another of nine
years of age, who had killed his companion, were
sentenced to death; and he of ten actually hanged.
Why? He knew the difference between right and
wrong. He had learned that in Sunday school.
Why, Mr. Savage says age makes no difference,
and that if this court should do what every other
court in Illinois has done since its foundation, and
refuse to sentence these boys to death, no one else
would ever be hanged in Illinois. Well, I can
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