The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
grow up to be useful and respected citizens in the
community, have a correct philosophy of life.
Those who want to excel in crime, those who want
to tear down instead of build up, select the wrong
philosophy of life. That is all there is to this. They
had the power of choice, and they deliberately chose
to adopt the wrong philosophy and to make their
conduct correspond with it.
These two defendants were perverts, Loeb the
victim and Leopold the aggressor, and they quar-
reled. Then they entered into a " childish compact,"
Dr. Healy says, so that these unnatural crimes might
continue. Dr. Healy says that this is a " childish
compact"; and I say if Dr. Healy is not ashamed
of himself, he ought to be. My God! I was a
grown man before I knew of such depravity. Mr.
Bachrach says that is an evidence of insanity. The
statute of Illinois says that crimes against nature
are crimes punishable by imprisonment in the peni-
tentiary. It is not a defense to a murder charge.
Mitigation! Mitigation! I have heard so many
big words in this case that I sometimes thought
probably we were letting error creep into the record.
So many strange, foreign words have been used
here; and the Constitution provides that the trial
must be conducted in the English language. I
don't know; maybe I have got aggravation and
mitigation mixed up.
It is a mitigating circumstance, if your Honor
please, that when they were outlining the plan of
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