The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
There is two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of
testimony. I wondered when I heard these doctors
say that they could not make a complete adequate
examination in less than twenty or thirty days,
whether the fact that they were working on a per
diem rate of two hundred and fifty dollars did not
enter into the matter.
The State was peculiarly fortunate in this case,
in that we took time by the forelock. Mr. Bachrach,
Jr., was guileless enough to believe that after I had
gotten their confessions and corroborated them in
every detail, I had a suspicion in my mind that
these two young perverts and murderers were insane.
Mr. Darrow knows me a little longer, and he is not
quite so guileless as the younger Bachrach, and he
guessed that maybe after I knew they had no defense
on the fact, and knew how much money
they had, I might think that they were going to
put in some kind of a fancy insanity defense. And
that is the reason I sent for the four best alienists
in Chicago, while I still had these young, egotistical
Smart Alecs — that is all they are, they are not
supermen, they are just a couple of spoiled Smart
Alecs, spoiled by the twaddling and petting of their
folks and by the people who fawn upon them on
account of their wealth. They repeat, parrotlike,
things that they have remembered and assume the
solemn expression of an owl and talk about super-
men. In one breath one of these wise men from the
East will tell you that the two defendants still be-
251