The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
could plan the perfect crime. He had thought of it
and talked of it for years, and then came this sorry
act of his, utterly irrational and motiveless, a plan
to commit a perfect crime which must contain kid-
naping, and there must be ransom, or else it could
not be perfect, and they must get the money.
The State itself in opening this case said that it
was largely for experience and for a thrill, which it
was. In the end the State switched it on to the
foolish reason of getting cash. Every fact in this
case shows that cash had almost nothing to do with
it, except as a factor in the perfect crime.
This phantasy grew in the mind of Dickie Loeb
almost before he began to read. It developed as a
child just as kleptomania has developed in many a
person and is clearly recognized by the courts. He
went from one thing to another — in the main insig-
nificant, childish things. And, finally, the planning
for this crime. Murder was the least part of it; to
kidnap and get the money, and kill in connection
with it; that was the childish scheme growing up in
these childish minds. And they had it in mind for
five or six months — planning what? Planning
where every step was foolish and childish; acts that
could have been planned in an hour or a day; plan-
ning this, and then planning that, changing this and
changing that; the weird actions of two mad brains.
Counsel have laughed at us for talking about
phantasies and hallucinations. They have laughed
at us in one breath, but admitted it in another. Let
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