- Darrow的结束语：(I)
Closing Argument
The State of Illinois v. Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb
Delivered by Clarence Darrow
Chicago, Illinois, August 22, 1924
Your Honor, it has been almost three months since the great responsibility of this case was assumed by my associates and myself. It has been three months of great anxiety. A burden which I gladly would have been spared excepting for my feelings of affection toward some of the members of one of these unfortunate families.
Our anxiety over this case has not been due to the facts that are connected with this most unfortunate affair, but to the almost unheard of publicity it has received; to the fact that newspapers all over this country have been giving it space such as they have almost never before given to any case. The fact that day after day the people of Chicago have been regaled with stories of all sorts about it, until almost every person has formed an opinion. And when the public is interested and demands a punishment, no matter what the offense, great or small, it thinks of only one punishment, and that is death. It may not be a question that involves the taking of human life; it may be a question of pure prejudice alone; but when the public speaks as one man, it thinks only of killing.
It was announced that there were millions of dollars to be spent on this case. Wild and extravagant stories were freely published as though they were facts. Here was to be an effort to save the lives of two boys by the use of money in fabulous amounts. We announced to the public that no excessive use of money would be made in this case, neither for lawyers nor for psychiatrists, or in any other way. We have faithfully kept that promise. The psychiatrists are receiving a per diem, and only a per diem, which is the same as is paid by the state. The attorneys, at their own request, have agreed to take such amount as the officers of the Chicago Bar Association may think proper in this case. If we fail in this defense it will not be for lack of money. It will be on account of money. Money has been the most serious handicap that we have met. There are times when poverty is fortunate.
I insist, Your Honor, that had this been the case of two boys of these defendants' age, unconnected with families of great wealth, there is not a state's attorney in Illinois who could not have consented at once to a plea of guilty and a punishment in the penitentiary for life. Not one. No lawyer could have justified any other attitude. No prosecution could have justified it.
We are here with the lives of two boys imperiled, with the public aroused. For what? Because, unfortunately, the parents have money. Nothing else.
I have heard in the last six weeks nothing but the cry for blood. I have heard from the office of the state's attorney only ugly hate. I have heard precedents quoted which would be a disgrace to a savage race. I have seen a court urged almost to the point of threats to hang two boys, in the face of science, in the face of philosophy, in the face of humanity, in the face of experience, in the face of all the better and more humane thought of the age.
Why, Mr. Savage [one of the prosecutors] says age makes no difference, and that if this court should do what every other court in Illinois has done since its foundation, and refuse to sentence these boys to death, none else would ever be hanged in Illinois.
Well, I can imagine some results worse than that. So long as this terrible tool is to be used for a plaything, without thought or consideration, we ought to get rid of it for the protection of human life.
Now, Your Honor, Mr. Savage, in as cruel a speech as he knew how to make, said to this court that we pled guilty because we are afraid to do anything else.
Your Honor, that is true.
It was not correct that we would have defended these boys in this court; we believe we have been fair to the public. Anyhow, we have tried, and we have tried under terribly hard conditions.
We have said to the public and to this court that neither the parents, nor the friends, nor the attorneys would want these boys released. Unfortunate though it be, it is true, and those the closest to them know perfectly well that they should not be released, and that they should be permanently isolated from society. We are asking this court to save their lives, which is the least and the most that a judge can do.
We did plead guilty before Your Honor because we were afraid to submit our cause to a jury.
I can tell Your Honor why. I have found that years and experience with life tempers one's emotions and makes him more understanding of his fellowman. When my friend Savage is my age, or even yours, he will read his address to this court with horror. I am aware that as one grows older he is less critical. He is not so sure. He is inclined to make some allowance for his fellowman. I am aware that a court has more experience, more judgment, and more kindliness than a jury.
Your Honor, it may be hardly fair to the court, I am aware that I have helped to place a serious burden upon your shoulders. And at that, I have always meant to be your friend, but this was not an act of friendship. I know perfectly well that where responsibility is divided by twelve, it is easy to say: "Away with him."
But, Your Honor, if these boys hang, you must do it. There can be no division of responsibility here. You can never explain that the rest overpowered you. It must be by your deliberate, cool, premeditated act, without a chance to shift responsibility. It was not a kindness to you. We placed this responsibility on your shoulders because we were mindful of the rights of our clients, and we were mindful of the unhappy families who have done no wrong.
Your Honor will never thank me for unloading this responsibility upon you, but you know that I would have been untrue to my clients if had not concluded to take this chance before court, instead of submitting it to a poisoned jury in the city of Chicago. I did it knowing that it would be an unheard of thing for any court, no matter who, to sentence these boys to death. Your Honor, I must for a moment criticize the arguments that have preceded me. I can sum up the prosecutor's arguments in a minute: cruelly, dastardly, premeditated, fiendish, abandoned, and malignant heart.
Now, that is what I have listened to for three days against two minors, two children, who have no right to sign a note or take a deed. Cowardly? Well, I don't know. Let me tell you something that I think is cowardly, whether their acts were or not. Here is Dickie Loeb, and Nathan Leopold, and the state objects to anybody calling one "Dickie" and the other "Babe" although everybody does, but they think they can hang them easier if their names are Richard and Nathan, so, we will call them Richard and Nathan. Eighteen and nineteen years old at the time of the homicide. Here are three officers watching them. They are led out and
in [to] this jail and across the bridge waiting to be hanged. Not a chance to get away. Handcuffed when they get out of this room. Not a chance. Penned like rats in a trap; and for a lawyer with physiological eloquence to wave his fist in front of their faces and shout "Cowardly!" does not appeal to me as a brave act.
Cold-blooded? Why? Because they planned, and schemed. Yes. But here are the officers of justice, so-called, with all the power of the state, and he said they played for five cents a point. Now, I trust Your Honor knows better than I do how much of a game that would be. At poker I might guess, but I know little about bridge. But what else? He said that in a game one of them lost $90 to the other one. They were playing again each other, and one of them lost $90? Ninety dollars! Their joint money was just the same; and there is not another word of evidence in this case to sustain the statement of Mr. Crowe, who pleads to hang these boys. Your Honor, is it not trifling?
It would be trifling, excepting, Your Honor, that we are dealing in human life. And we are dealing in more than that; we are dealing in the future fate of two families. We are talking of placing a blot upon two houses that do not deserve it. And all that they can get out of their imagination is that there was a game of bridge and one lost $90 to the other, and therefore they went out and committed murder. Your Honor knows that it is utterly absurd. The evidence was absolutely worthless. The statement was made out of whole cloth, and Mr. Crowe felt like that policeman who came in here and perjured himself, as I will show you later on, who said that when he was talking with Nathan Leopold Jr., he told him the public was not satisfied with the motive. I wonder if the public is satisfied with the motive? If there is any person in Chicago who; under the evidence in this case would believe that this was the motive, then he is stupid. That is all I have to say for him, just plain stupid.
But let us go further than that. Who were these two boys? And how did it happen?
On a certain day they killed poor little Robert Franks. They were not to get $10,000; they were to get $5,000 if it worked; that is, $5,000 each. Neither one could get more than five, and either one was risking his; neck in the job. So each one of my clients was risking his neck for $5,000, if it had anything to do with it, which it did not.
Did they need the money? Why at this very time, and a few months before, Dickie Loeb had $3,000 [in his] checking account in the bank. Your Honor, I would be ashamed to talk about this except that in all apparent seriousness they are asking to kill these two boys on the strength of this flimsy foolishness. At that time, Richard Loeb had a three-thousand-dollar checking account in the bank. He had three Liberty Bonds, one of which was past due, and the interest on each of them had not been collected for three years. And yet they would ask to hang him on the theory that he committed this murder because he needed money.
How about Leopold? Leopold was in regular receipt of $125 a month; he had an automobile; paid nothing for board and clothes, and expenses; he got money whenever he wanted it, and he had arranged to go to Europe and had bought his ticket and was going to leave about the time he was arrested in this case. He passed his examination for the Harvard Law School, and was going to take a short trip to Europe before it was time for him to attend the fall term. His ticket had been bought, and his father was to give him $3,000 to make the trip. Your Honor, jurors sometimes make mistakes, and courts do, too. If on this evidence the court is to construe a motive out of this case, then I insist that a motive could be construed out of any set of circumstances and facts that might be imagined.
(to be continued)
July