The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
the court is required by the law of the land to fix
the punishment.
Mr. Darrow: Turpitude of the party, isn't it?
The word turpitude doesn't attach to an act, does
it?
Mr. Marshall: It characterizes it or describes
it.
it?
Mr. Darrow: It describes the person, doesn't
Mr. Marshall: There is in this case not even a
reasonable doubt of the sanity of these defendants
because that is included in the plea of guilty. That
covers the whole field of responsibility, and leaves
open entirely and with no evidence in mitigation
before the court, the facts and circumstances, the
viciousness, the depravity, in the language of
the Supreme Court, the " turpitude " of the act
itself.
Now, as a tangent to this responsibility, we have
it in evidence in the case that Leopold, Jr., asserted
himself to be a superman, believed that he was
above the law, that if he thought it right to commit
a murder, then so far as he was concerned it was
right. This was his philosophy, based upon his
views of the Nietzschean doctrines.
Your Honor, we have had in this State one out-
standing great criminal trial prior to this one. I
refer to the Anarchists Case. The anarchists also
had their philosophy.
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