The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
two; William Yancey Mills, twenty-one; Lloyd
Bopp, twenty-three; Frank Camponi and Frank
Zager, twenty-two, each of them; Nicholas Viani
was seventeen years old when he was convicted,
eighteen when he was executed; Oscar McCavit was
twenty-three; Harvey Church was twenty-three.
These men named have all been executed, and at
the present time, in jail, awaiting the day of execu-
tion, are Walter Krauser, twenty-one, and Bernard
Grant, nineteen.
If youth is to mitigate an atrocious murder, if age
is to save these men from their just punishment,
every conviction that I have cited that has led to
the gallows has been a mistake in the law, because
not one of them — and I know something of the
facts in each of them — not one of them compares
in premeditation, in malice or in execution with the
terrible crime that is here for judgment.
Take this seventeen-year-old murderer, Nicholas
Viani, eighteen when he was executed.
This crime, when laid parallel with the record in
this case as it is here before the court, is a simple
crime indeed. Viani, with his companions, ran into
a saloon, fired on the owner, took his money and
went out. Viani was young and had been led into
crime but, none the less, his responsibility under the
law was complete and he was executed.
This is not the only case, your Honor, that has
ever come in on a plea. Before Judge Kavanaugh,
in this court, James Smith and James Butler on
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