The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
the most cold-blooded murder case that ever was
tried, and I convicted them, and they are dead."
" I tried the worst forgery case that ever was tried,
and I won that. I never did anything that was not
big." Lawyers are apt to say that.
And then there is another thing, your Honor:
these adjectives always go well with juries —
bloody, cold-blooded, despicable, cowardly, das-
tardly, cruel, heartless. The twelve jurors, being
good themselves, think it is a tribute to their virtue
if they follow the litany of the State's Attorney.
I suppose it may have some effect with the court;
I do not know. Anyway, those are the chances we
take when we do our best to save life and reputation.
" How does a judge dare to refuse to hang by the
neck until dead two cowardly ruffians who com-
mitted the coldest-blooded murder in the history of
the world? " That is a good talking point.
They say that this was a cruel murder, the worst
that ever happened. I say that very few murders
ever occurred that were as free from cruelty as this
under all fair rules of measurement.
Of course, your Honor, I admit that I hate killing,
and I hate it no matter how it is done, whether you
shoot a man through the heart, or cut his head off
with an axe, or kill him with a chisel, or tie a rope
around his neck. I hate it. I always did. I always
shall.
But there are degrees, and if I might be permitted
to make my own rules I would say that if I were
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