The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
we instinctively draw back from death. It is shock-
ing wherever it is and however it is, and perhaps all
death is almost equally shocking.
But here is the picture of a dead boy, past pain,
when no harm can come to him, put in a culvert,
after taking off his clothes so that the evidence
would be destroyed; and that is pictured to this
court as a reason for hanging. Well, your Honor,
that does not appeal to me as strongly as the hitting
over the head of little Robert Franks with a chisel.
The boy was dead.
Your Honor, I can think of another scene. I can
think, and only think, your Honor, of taking two
boys, one eighteen and the other nineteen, irrespon-
sible, weak, diseased, penning them in a cell, check-
ing off the days and the hours and the minutes,
until they will be taken out and hanged. Wouldn't
it be a glorious day for Chicago? Wouldn't it be
a glorious triumph for the State's Attorney?
Wouldn't it be a glorious illustration of Christianity
and kindness and charity? I can picture them,
wakened in the gray light of morning, furnished a
suit of clothes by the State, led to the scaffold, their
feet tied, black caps drawn over their heads, stood
on a trapdoor, the hangman pressing a spring, so
that it gives way under them; I can see them fall
through space — and — stopped by the rope around
their necks.
This would surely expiate placing Bobby Franks
in the culvert after he was dead. This would doubt-
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