Leopold and Loeb The Perfect Crime Trial of the Century

The murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold that shocked the nation is best remembered decades later for the twelve-hour long plea of Clarence Darrow to save his clients from the gallows. His summation, rambling and disorganized as it was at times, stands as one of the most eloquent attacks on the death penalty ever delivered in an American courtroom. Mixing poetry and prose, science and emotion, a world-weary cynicism and a dedication to his cause, hatred of bloodlust and love of man, Darrow took his audience on an oratorical ride that would be unimaginable in a criminal trial today.... There would have been no arrests and no trial but for what the prosecutor called "the hand of God at work in this case." A pair of horn-rimmed tortoise shell glasses were discovered with the body of Bobby Franks. The glasses, belonging to Nathan Leopold, had slipped out of the jacket he removed as he struggled to hide the body. They had an unusual hinge and could be traced to a single Chicago optometrist, who had written only three such prescriptions, including the one to Leopold. When questioned about the glasses, Leopold said that he must have lost them on one of his frequent birding expeditions. He was asked by an investigator to demonstrate how the glasses might have fallen out of his pockets, but failed after a series of purposeful trips to dislodge the glasses from his coat. Questioning became more intense.

Leopold said that he spent the twenty-first of May picking up girls in his car with Loeb and driving out to Lincoln Park. Loeb, when questioned separately, confirmed Leopold's alibi. State's attorney Robert Crowe, heading the investigation, was skeptical. Among the items found in a search of the Leopold home was a letter written by Nathan strongly suggesting that he and Loeb had a homosexual relationship. Still, prosecutor's were on the verge of releasing the two suspects when two additional pieces of evidence surfaced. First, typewritten notes taken from a member of Leopold's law school study group were found to match the the type from the ransom note, despite the fact that an earlier search of the Leopold home turned up a typewriter with unmatching type. Then came a statement from the Leopold family chauffeur, made in the hope of establishing Nathan's innocence, that spelled his doom. He said he was certain that the Leopold car, the one the boys claimed they had spent the night driving around with girls, had not left the garage on the day of the murder.

Loeb confessed first, then Leopold. Their confessions differed only on the point of who did the actual killing, with each pointing the finger at the other. Leopold later pleaded with Loeb to admit to killing Franks but, according to Leopold, Loeb said, "Mompsie feels less terrible than she might, thinking you did it and I'm not going to take that shred of comfort away from her."

The Loeb and Leopold families hired Clarence Darrow and Benjamin Bachrach to represent the two boys. Nathan said his first impression of Darrow was one of "horror", unimpressed as he was by Darrow's unruly hair, rumpled jacket, egg-splattered shirt, suspenders, and askew tie. His opinion of Darrow would soon change. He later described his attorney as a great, simple, unaffected man, with a "deep-seated, all-embracing kindliness." In his book Life Plus Ninety-Nine Years, Leopold wrote that if asked to name the two men who "came closest to preaching the pure essence of love" he would say Jesus and Clarence Darrow.

It was Darrow's decision to change the boys' initial pleas to the charges of murder and kidnapping from "not guilty" (suggesting a traditional insanity defense) to "guilty." The decision was made primarily to prevent the state from getting two opportunities to get a death sentence. With "not guilty" pleas, the state had planned to try the boys first on one of the two charges, both of which carried the death penalty in Illinois, and if it failed to win a hanging on the first charge, try again on the second. The guilty plea also meant that the sentencing decision would be made by a judge, not by a jury. Darrow's decision to plead the boys guilty undoubtedly was based in part on his belief that the judge who would hear their case, John R. Caverly, was a "kindly and discerning" man. With the public seemingly unanimous in calling for death, Darrow did not want to face a jury. In his summation Darrow noted, "where responsibility is divided by twelve, it is easy to say ‘away with him'; but, your honor, if these boys are to hang, you must do it--...it must be by your cool, premeditated act, without a chance to shift responsibility."

The defense hoped to build its case against death around the testimony of four psychiatrists, called "alienists" at the time. The best talent psychiatric talent 1924 had to offer was sought out by both sides to examine the defendants.