The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
Now, concerning his personality, one finds him extremely
energetic, both physically and mentally. He does not want
to stop after a half day of these arduous tests. It seems
there is a great deal of what psychiatrists call pressure to
mental activity, very little fatigue, and great desire to go on
elaborating his thoughts. He showed himself to be self-
centered and egotistic beyond any normal limit. He is ex-
tremely critical of other people and decidedly supercilious
about his own mental attainments. Very stubborn in his
opinions. He is right; the world is wrong. Leopold has
extremely little sympathy or feelings or conceptions of grati-
tude except in some very narrow fields. There has been a
tremendous subordination of many normal feelings and emo-
tions to this excessively developed conception of himself as a
superior individual; and he has reacted in a most abnormal
way in regard to the whole crime. Leopold shows little dis-
gust at jail surroundings. His main concern seems to be
whether or not the reporters say the right thing about him.
There seems to be some steady impairment of his own
judgment considering himself and his relationship to the
realities of life, inasmuch as he has been so willing to throw
away his remarkably fine chances in his environment for such
petty awards in relation to a most heinous crime. An indi-
vidual with normal judgment would have naturally developed
his real superiority and not taken such extraordinary chances
of ending his career.
He says that there is one thing that he is afraid that he
has not " gotten across to us scientists," and that is, that the
most important thing, much more important even than pre-
serving his life, is the preservation of his dignity.
Dr. Healy here referred to Leopold's fantasy of
the " king and the slave." He told how Leopold
had identified himself with his " king," Loeb, and
the physician produced a note Leopold had given
him in court while Dr. White was telling of this
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