The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
Hoping not to have caused you too much trouble in
reading this, I am (for the present) as ever,
Babe.
Now, I undertake to say that under any inter-
pretation of this case, taking into account all the
things your Honor knows, that have not been made
public, or leaving them out, nobody can interpret
that letter excepting on the theory of a diseased
mind, and with it goes this strange document which
was referred to in the letter:
I, Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., being under no duress or
compulsion, do hereby affirm and declare that on this,
the Qth day of October, 1923, I for reasons of my own
locked the door of the room in which I was with one
Richard A. Loeb, with the intent of blocking his only
feasible mode of egress, and that I further indicated my
intention of applying physical force upon the person of
the said Richard A. Loeb if necessary to carry out my
design, to-wit, to block his only feasible mode of egress.
There is nothing in this case, whether heard alone
by the court or heard in public, that can explain
these documents, on the theory that the defendants
were normal human beings.
The same may be said also of the other letter,
dated October 10, from Babe, if I may be permitted
to call him Babe until you hang him.* If the ex-
pressions in those letters are sane expressions, your
Honor, the rest of the world is crazy.
* Editor's Note. — The letter here referred to by Mr. Dar-
row is printed in full beginning on page 222 of this volume.
190