The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
case, if your Honor please, under the statutes of the
State of Illinois in the year 1924. The statute that
your Honor is bound to enforce in this case, and
the statute under which we are trying these defend-
ants, provides that from 14 years of age up the
law presumes that one has the capacity to commit
a crime and is entirely responsible for it.
Let us see at what age some of these men have
been hanged. Buff Higgins was hanged at the age
of 23. Butch Lyons was 25. Henry Foster, 24.
Albert C. Fields, 24. Windreth, 29. Mannow, 27.
Dan McCarty, 27. William T. Powers, 23. Chris
Murray, 28. John Drugan, 22. Robert Howard,
30. Louis Pesant, sentenced on a plea of guilty
April 15, 1904, by Judge Kernsten, was 23. Peter
Neidermeyer, 23. Gustave Marks, 21. Harvey
Van Dine, 21.
These were not the poor sons of multimillion-
aires; these were the sons of poor men, who had no
advantages in life, men who had no education, men
who had been brought up in the gutter and the
slums.
Richard Ivens, 24. Andrew Williams, 22.
Thomas Jennings, 28. Thomas Schultz, 19. Frank
Shiblewski, 22, and his brother hanged the same
day. Ewald, 23. Smith, 27. Lundgren, 25. Den-
nis Anderson, 21. Lloyd Bopp, 23. Albert Johnson,
25. Earl Dear, 26. Jack O'Brien, 22. Mills, 21.
Champion, 22. Zander, 22.
Haensel, a man who fought for his country, who
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