Darrow, Clarence (1857–1938)

During the peak of his career, Clarence Darrow was the most well-known criminal lawyer in the United States. It is a fact that not one of Darrow's clients ever received the death penalty under his defense, including the infamous murder trial of Leopold and Loeb, sons of rich socialites. A brilliant maneuver at the last minute of the trial and a two-day long summation spared the two boy's lives. Also in Darrow's extensive résumé was his defense in the “trial of the century” where he defended John T. Scopes for teaching evolution and the thoughts of Charles Darwin to his students; this case has been nationally remembered as the “Monkey Trial” and was the cornerstone of the transformation from traditionalist ideals to the recognition of scientific evidence.

Clarence Darrow's origins were, at best, humble. He was born in Kingsman, Ohio, on April 18, 1857, the fifth child of Amirus and Emily Eddy Darrow. The town of Kingsman had only 400 inhabitants and was not even labeled on contemporary maps of the area. Amirus Darrow manufactured and sold furniture and was the town's undertaker. Emily Eddy Darrow played the traditional role of running the household; she died when Clarence was only 15 years old. Although the Darrows lived a meager existence in the smallest of towns, they had a love for books; they read Jefferson, Voltaire, and Thomas Paine, and this love of books was force-fed to their children.

Despite Clarence Darrow's humble origins, he went to Allegheny College, from which he graduated. After a brief time of fruitless jobs, he attended the University of Michigan Law School, where he gained his juror's doctorate in law. Darrow did badly in school, mostly because he was not disciplined; he failed to prepare for and to contend with unexciting works, which would hurt him in his future legal career. He relied on luck, inspiration, and his uncanny ability to “rise to the occasion.”

Clarence Darrow laid claim to many victories in court, but none were more recognized than the “Leopold and Loeb” case and the “Monkey Trial.” The Leopold and Loeb trial happened in the summer of 1924, in the city of Chicago. Richard Loeb, age 17, the son of the vice president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, and Nathan Leopold, age 18, also the son of a wealthy family, conspired to commit the perfect murder. They lured a friend into a rented car. Once in the vehicle, the two boys proceeded to stab the young boy with a chisel and strangle him with rope. After dumping acid on the boy to make identification difficult, Loeb and Leopold disposed of the body in a swamp. After the body was disposed of, they proceeded to mail a letter to the murdered boy's family and asked for a ransom, with the promise that the boy would be unharmed. Although the young murderers thought they had pulled it off, they soon found out that their scheme was far from perfect.

Police discovered the young boy's body soon after Loeb and Leopold disposed of it, and were able to identify the body. A crucial mistake by the boys was that Nathan Leopold had dropped his spectacles where the body was disposed; these spectacles had special hinges on them that were sold to only three people in all of Chicago, one of those being Nathan. Ten days after the murder, Loeb and Leopold were brought in for questioning; both cracked under pressure and confessed to the murder, though both confessed that the other did the actual killing.

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