The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
this conspiracy and murder, they wanted to take a
little girl, the daughter of the rich, and first rape
her and then murder her, and then collect the ran-
som. If that evidence had been put in by the State,
I would have thought it was an aggravation. These
three wise men, with their distorted theories, hired
by the defense, put that evidence in. Clarence Darrow
calls it a mitigating circumstance. Why, when
they murder a boy, they ought to be treated with
kindness and consideration. If they had taken a
little girl, and debauched her, I suppose each would
have been entitled to a medal.
What have we come to in this community? I
want to tell your Honor, bearing in mind the testimony
that was whispered into your ear, one of the
motives in this case was a desire to satisfy un-
natural lust. They first wanted a little girl, so
Leopold could rape her; then they decided on a
little boy. What happened? Immediately upon
killing him, they took his trousers off. And how do
you undress a child? First, the little coat, the
collar, the tie, the shirt, and the last thing, the
trousers. And yet immediately after killing this
poor little boy, his trousers alone came off, and for
three hours that little dead boy, with all his other
clothes on him, remained in that car; and they did
not take the balance of the clothes off until they
pulled the body into the culvert.
Away back in November, if your Honor please,
when this crime first began to take the form of a
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