Editing Clarence Darrow (section)

===National renown===

====Leopold and Loeb====

In the summer of 1924, Darrow took on the case of Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, the teenage sons of two wealthy Chicago families who were accused of kidnapping and killing [[Bobby Franks]], a 14-year-old boy, from their stylish southside [[Kenwood, Chicago|Kenwood]] neighborhood. Leopold was a law student at the [[University of Chicago]] about to transfer to [[Harvard Law School]], and Loeb was the youngest graduate ever from the University of Michigan; they were 19 and 18, respectively, when they were arrested.<ref name="Darrow 1932"/> When asked why they committed the crime, Leopold told his captors: "The thing that prompted Dick to want to do this thing and prompted me to want to do this thing was a sort of pure love of excitement ... the imaginary love of thrills, doing something different ... the satisfaction and the ego of putting something over."

Chicago newspapers labeled the case the "[[Trial of the Century]]"<ref>[http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials5.htm JURIST – The Trial of Leopold and Loeb] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101103143040/http://www.jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials5.htm |date=November 3, 2010 }}, Prof. Douglas Linder. Retrieved November 2, 2010.</ref> and Americans around the country wondered what could drive the two young men, blessed with everything their society could offer, to commit such a depraved act. The killers had been arrested after a passing workman spotted the victim's body in an isolated nature preserve near the Indiana border just half a day after it was hidden, before they could collect a $10,000 ransom. Nearby were Leopold's eyeglasses with their distinctive, traceable frames, which he had dropped at the scene.

Leopold and Loeb made full confessions and took police on a hunt around Chicago to collect the evidence that would be used against them. The state's attorney told the press that he had a "hanging case" for sure. Darrow stunned the prosecution when he had his clients plead guilty in order to avoid a vengeance-minded jury and place the case before a judge. The trial, then, was actually a long sentencing hearing in which Darrow contended, with the help of expert testimony, that Leopold and Loeb were mentally diseased.

Darrow's closing argument lasted 12 hours. He repeatedly stressed the ages of the "boys" (before the Vietnam War, the age of majority was 21) and noted that "never had there been a case in Chicago where on a plea of guilty a boy under 21 had been sentenced to death." His plea was designed to soften the heart of Judge John Caverly, but also to mold public opinion, so that Caverly could follow precedent without too huge an uproar. Darrow succeeded. Caverly sentenced Leopold and Loeb to life in prison plus 99 years. Darrow's closing argument was published in several editions in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and was reissued at the time of his death.<ref name="Riggenbach" />

The Leopold and Loeb case raised, in a well-publicized trial, Darrow's lifelong contention that psychological, physical, and environmental influences — not a conscious choice between right and wrong — control human behavior. Darrow's psychiatric expert witnesses testified that both boys "were decidedly deficient in emotion". Darrow later argued that emotion is necessary for the decisions that people make. When someone tries to go against a certain law or custom that is forbidden, he wrote, he should feel a sense of revulsion. As neither Leopold nor Loeb had a working emotional system, they did not feel revolted.<ref name="Darrow 1932"/>

During the trial, the newspapers claimed that Darrow was presenting a "million dollar defense" for the two wealthy families. Many ordinary Americans were angered at his apparent greed. He had the families issue a statement insisting that there would be no large legal fees and that his fees would be determined by a committee composed of officers from the [[Chicago Bar Association]]. After trial, Darrow suggested $200,000 would be reasonable. After lengthy negotiations with the defendants' families, he ended up getting some $70,000 in gross fees, which, after expenses and taxes, netted Darrow $30,000, worth over $375,000 in 2016.<ref>''See'', A. Weinberg, ed., ''Attorney for the Damned'', pp. 17–18, n. 1 (Simon & Schuster, 1957)); Hulbert papers, Northwestern University.</ref>

====Scopes Trial====

[[File:Clarence S Darrow.jpg|thumb|right|Clarence Darrow {{Circa|1925}}]]

In 1925, Darrow defended [[John T. Scopes]] in the ''[[Scopes Trial|State of Tennessee v. Scopes]]'' trial. It has often been called the "Scopes Monkey Trial," a title popularized by author and journalist [[H. L. Mencken]]. The trial, which was deliberately staged to bring publicity to the issue at hand, pitted Darrow against [[William Jennings Bryan]] in a court case that tested Tennessee's [[Butler Act]], which had been passed on March 21, 1925. The act forbade the teaching of "the [[evolution|Evolution Theory]]" in any state-funded educational establishment. More broadly, it outlawed in state-funded schools (including universities) the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the [[creationism|Divine Creation]] of man as taught in the [[Bible]], and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm|title = Tennessee Anti-evolution Statute - UMKC School of Law}}</ref>

During the trial, Darrow requested that Bryan be called to the stand as an expert witness on the [[Bible]]. Over the other prosecutor's objection, Bryan agreed. Popular media{{citation needed|date=August 2018}} at the time portrayed the following exchange as the deciding factor that turned public opinion against Bryan in the trial:

<blockquote>
:Darrow: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?"
:Bryan: "Yes, sir; I have tried to.... But, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was a boy."
:Darrow: "Do you claim then that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?"
:Bryan: "I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there; some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people."
</blockquote>

<!--  Commented out: [[Image:scopes trial.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Clarence Darrow and [[William Jennings Bryan]] chat in court during the Scopes Trial.{{Deletable image-caption|date=March 2012}}]] -->
After about two hours, Judge [[John T. Raulston]] cut the questioning short and on the following morning ordered that the whole session (which in any case the jury had not witnessed) be expunged from the record, ruling that the testimony had no bearing on whether Scopes was guilty of teaching evolution. Scopes was found guilty and ordered to pay the minimum fine of $100.<ref>See Tenn. Const. art. VI, s. 14; see also, Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 S.W. 363 (1926)</ref>

A year later, the [[Tennessee Supreme Court]] reversed the decision of the Dayton court on a procedural technicality — not on constitutional grounds, as Darrow had hoped. According to the court, the fine should have been set by the jury, not Raulston. Rather than send the case back for further action, however, the [[Tennessee Supreme Court]] dismissed the case. The court commented, "Nothing is to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/scopes/id/157|title=Tennessee Supreme Court - Scopes Trial - Page 1}}</ref>

The event led to a change in public sentiment and an increased discourse on the creation claims of religious teachers versus those of secular scientists {{mdash}} i.e., [[creationism]] compared to [[evolutionism]] {{mdash}} that still exists. It also became popularized in a play based loosely on the trial, ''[[Inherit the Wind (play)|Inherit the Wind]]'', which has been adapted several times on film and television.<ref name=1960Film>{{AFI film|53192}}</ref><ref name=1988Film>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/18/arts/tv-weekend-inherit-the-wind-and-hot-paint.html |title=TV Weekend; 'Inherit the Wind' and 'Hot Paint' |first=John J. |last=O’Connor |date=March 18, 1988 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=February 18, 2022|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=1999Film>{{cite web |url=http://geoffgould.net/990330_inheritthewind.htm |title=Geoffrey Gould reports from the set of ''Inherit the Wind'' |website=jeffgould.net |access-date=February 18, 2022}}</ref>

====Ossian Sweet====
On September 9, 1925, a [[white people|white]] mob in Detroit attempted to drive a black family out of the home they had purchased in a white neighborhood. During the struggle, a white man was killed, and the eleven black people in the house were later arrested and charged with murder. [[Ossian Sweet]], a doctor, and three members of his family were brought to trial, and after an initial deadlock, Darrow argued to the [[all-white jury]]: "I insist that there is nothing but prejudice in this case; that if it was reversed and eleven white men had shot and killed a black man while protecting their home and their lives against a mob of blacks, nobody would have dreamed of having them indicted. They would have been given medals instead...."<ref>{{cite book|last=B. J.|first=Widick|title=Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence |edition=Revised|date=May 1, 1989|publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]]|location=Detroit, MI|page=8}}</ref>

Following a mistrial, it was agreed that each of the eleven defendants would be tried individually. Darrow, alongside Thomas Chawke, would first defend Ossian's brother Henry, who had confessed to firing the shot on Garland Street. Henry was found not guilty on grounds of [[Right of self-defense|self-defense]], and the prosecution determined to [[nolle prosequi|drop]] the charges on the remaining ten. The trials were presided over by [[Frank Murphy]], who went on to become [[Governor of Michigan]] and an [[Associate Justice]] of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]].<ref>*[[Kevin Boyle (historian)|Boyle, Kevin]], ''[[Arc of Justice]]: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age'' (Henry Holt & Company, New York: 2004) ([[National Book Award]] Winner) {{ISBN|978-0-8050-7933-3}}.</ref>

Darrow's closing statement, which lasted over seven hours, is seen as a landmark in the [[civil rights movement]] and was included in the book ''Speeches that Changed the World'' (given the name "I Believe in the Law of Love"). The two closing arguments of Clarence Darrow, from the first and second trials, show how he learned from the first trial and reshaped his remarks.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/sweet/Summpage.html |title=Darrow's Summations in the Sweet Trials (1925 &1926) |publisher=Law.umkc.edu |date=May 11, 1926 |access-date=October 20, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100624025813/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/sweet/Summpage.html |archive-date=June 24, 2010 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

====Massie Trial====
The Scopes Trial and the Sweet trial were the last big cases that Darrow took on before he retired from full-time practice at the age of 68. He still took on a few cases such as the 1932 [[Massie Trial]] in Hawaii.

In his last headline-making case, the Massie Trial, Darrow, devastated by the [[Great Depression]], was hired by Eva Stotesbury, the wife of Darrow's old family friend [[Edward T. Stotesbury]], to come to the defense of [[Grace Fortescue]], Edward J. Lord, Deacon Jones, and Thomas Massie, Fortescue's son-in-law, who were accused of murdering [[Joseph Kahahawai]]. Kahahawai had been accused, along with four other men, of raping and beating [[Thalia Massie]], Thomas's wife and Fortescue's daughter; the resulting 1931 case ended in a hung jury (though the charges were later dropped and repeated investigation has shown them to be innocent). Enraged, Fortescue and Massie then orchestrated the murder of Kahahawai in order to extract a confession and were caught by police officers while transporting his dead body.

Darrow entered the racially charged atmosphere as the lawyer for the defendants. He reconstructed the case as a justified [[honor killing]] by Thomas Massie. Considered by ''[[The New York Times]]'' to be one of Darrow's three most compelling trials (along with the Scopes Trial and the Leopold and Loeb case), the case captivated the nation and most of America strongly supported the honor killing defense. In fact, the final defense arguments were transmitted to the mainland through a special radio hookup. In the end, the jury came back with a unanimous verdict of guilty, but on the lesser crime of manslaughter.<ref>David Stannard.[http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Oct/14/op/op03a.html "The Massie case: Injustice and courage"]. ''The Honolulu Advertiser'', October 14, 2001.</ref> As to Darrow's closing, one juror commented, "[h]e talked to us like a bunch of farmers. That stuff may go over big in the Middle West, but not here."<ref>{{cite book | last = Stannard | first = David E. | author-link = David Stannard | title = Honor Killing: Race, Rape, and Clarence Darrow's Spectacular Last Case | orig-year = First published 2005 | year = 2006 | publisher = Penguin Group | isbn = 978-0-14-303663-0 | page = 382}}</ref> Governor [[Lawrence Judd]] later commuted the sentences to one hour in his office.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://darrow.law.umn.edu/Clarence_Darrow_Timeline.pdf |title=Clarence Darrow Timeline of His Life and Legal Career |author=Michael Hannon |page=86 |access-date=February 3, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131008005846/http://darrow.law.umn.edu/Clarence_Darrow_Timeline.pdf |archive-date=October 8, 2013 }}</ref> Years later Deacon admitted to shooting Kahahawai;<ref>{{Cite web |title=Confession of the Killer of Joe Kahahawai, Deacon Jones |url=https://famous-trials.com/massie/302-jonesconfession |access-date=2025-03-09 |website=famous-trials.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Van Slingerland |first=Peter |title=Something Terrible Has Happened |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1966 |isbn= |edition=1 |location=New York |pages=316-322}}</ref> Kahahawai was found not guilty in a [[posthumous trial]].{{citation needed|date=June 2013}}<ref>{{Cite news |last=Dang |first=Marvin |date=August 11, 2006 |title=MOCK TRIAL ENDS WITH 'NOT GUILTY' VERDICT |url=https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Aug/11/op/FP608110334.html |access-date=March 9, 2025 |work=The Honolulu Advertiser}}</ref>