Leopold and Loeb

In his defense of Leopold and Loeb, Clarence Darrow elected to dispense with
convention and admit that his clients were, in fact, guilty of the crime of which they had been
accused, namely the murder of fourteen year old Bobby Franks. Concession is rarely an integral
part of a defense attorneys strategy, let alone a winning one, but this was hardly a standard trial.
Both defendants had admitted to the crime, and the public wanted the death penalty. Darrow
reduced the rhetorical scope of his argument. Rather than convincing a jury of twelve that
Leopold and Loeb deserved leniency regardless of their guilt, Darrow only needed to convince a
bench of one that the murderous pair deserved a lifetime in prison. This argument centered
around two factorsthe personal responsibility of the judge and the consequences to society a
death sentence would have. In Clarence Darrows final argument, the present is a juncture
between a barbaric past and an ambiguous future, and only the judge can protect the world from
the wicked precedent a death sentence would set.
Darrow is not interested in determining whether or not an event has occurredhe
conceded that Leopold and Loeb committed the murder before his argument even began. Instead,
Darrow presents the ugly precedents the execution of Leopold and Loeb would both follow and
set. He states that, Once in England they hanged children seven years of age; not necessarily
hanged them, because hanging was never meant for punishment; it was meant for exhibition
(LGJ 205). Observers in the twentieth century could look back at cold-hearted execution with
horror, and if such actions were malicious then, they are malicious in the present. But the death
of Leopold and Loeb would not just follow immoral precedent. It would set a destructive one of
its own. As Darrow notes, no judge in Cook County even himself upon a plea of guilty passed
judgment of death in a case below the age of twenty-three (LGJ 206). A death sentence would
be a return to a murky, less charitable past. But there are other consequences for such an atavistic
sense of justice. Darrow says that bloodthirsty attitudes surrounding the case has put into the
hearts of men the hate and feeling and the lust for blood which possesses the primitive savage of
barbarous lands (LGJ 177). In the argument, executions are not singular, but causative. The
legacy of Bobby Franks murder would not terminate with the execution of Leopold and Loeb. It
would metastasize, spread, affect every other boy who in ignorance and darkness must grope his
way through the mazes which only childhood knows (LGJ 208).

Darrow uses the cases ties to the past to create a sense of shame in the judge. He begins
by emphasizing that the judge is not only responsible for the fate of Leopold and Loeb, but is
publically so. He tells the court that, If these boys hang, you must do it. There can be no
division of responsibility here, and that It would be an unheard of thing for any court, no
matter who, to sentence these boys to death (LGJ 167). In doing so, Darrow sets up a sort of
Aristotelian shame trifecta. The first element of this triad is how Darrow constructs himself. In
his discussion of shame, Aristotle states that a person is most easily shamed by those who
admire him and whom he admires and by whom he wishes to be admired. Darrow manages to
be all three. Quite early in the argument, he flat-out tells the judge that he always meant to be
[his] friend and that he believes a court has more experience, more judgment, and more
kindliness than a jury (LGJ 167). But this is not simple flattery. Darrow is leveraging his
reputation as a seasoned attorney and talented oratoreven a judge could have found him
worthy of respect when he was at the height of his career. But Darrows respect is contingent
upon the judges delivery of a favorable verdict.
However, it is not necessarily obvious that shame plays such a role in Darrows closing
argument. The judge might hold Darrows opinion in high regard, but probably not enough that
he would change a ruling in a controversial murder trial. The primary emotion, on the face of
things, seems to be pity, defined by Aristotle as all thingsthat are destructive, consisting of
grief and pains, and things that are ruinous, and whatever evils, having magnitude, are caused by
chance (2.8.8). Chance plays a prominent role in Darrows argument. He says the murder
resulted from the confluence of chance events, likening it to a fox stumbling upon a rabbit in the
woods (LGJ 193). The boys, as Darrow calls them, are then to be pitied. Under their own power,
they would have done nothing to harm Bobby Franks, but by their chance coming together, they
killed him and placed themselves in the power of a capricious legal system. However, despite its
prominence, pity is merely a supplement, an addition to make the judge more amenable to
Darrows other arguments. Though it seems to be a powerful emotion in Darrows final speech,
it is always used as a vehicle to induce shame in the judge. When Darrow describes Dickie and
Babe as children, as victims of a diseased brain (LGJ 174), he makes a plea for life
imprisonment seem like a small thing. Despite the fact that they are youth, and sick ones at that,
Darrow isnt asking for leniency or freedom. Just a punishment that is not outright cruel. Pity for
Leopold and Loeb makes Darrows request for life in prison seem smaller, more reasonable.

Aristotle says that not giving aid with money when one can or giving less aid (2.6.6). Darrows
request, of course, is not of the pecuniary sort, but the spirit of Aristotles observation still
stands: the judge would be giving far less than he ought if he decides to execute Leopold and
Loeb.
Though Darrow engages in fallacious reasoning, this does not necessarily detract from
the persuasiveness of his argument; there is a difference between rhetorically valid and logically
sound. Darrows argument that execution has grave consequences for society is a fallacious topic
from exaggeration, as it amplifies the action without showing that it was performed (2.24.4).
At no point does Darrow explain, specifically, what series of events will bring about a more
barbaric society should Leopold and Loeb be executed. And when he does talk about the
executions consequences, he does so in broad termsthough their deaths will [make] it harder
for every other boyin ignorance and darkness, he never says what will be made harder and in
what fashion it will be more difficult. He is arguing that the executions consequences will be
far-reaching without ever showing that it is an event capable of affecting the world in such a
manner. However, this does not mean that Darrows argument is not persuasive. It only needs to
be aesthetically pleasing, not rigorously logical, and on that count it succeeded. Darrows
argument is long and complex. The judge was not likely to logically deconstruct it. Regardless,
Darrows other argument were designed to make the judge more malleable. A fallacious topic on
its own may not be persuasive, but when it is fortified with arguments that make the audience
feel ashamed to disagree and gratified to consent, it has a much greater impact.
Darrow plucks characteristics from Aristotles concepts of the young and the old to
construct himself as experienced and principled and the prosecution as rash and callous. Aristotle
believes that the young choose to do fine things rather than things advantageous [to
themselves] (2.12.12). Darrow, though elderly by the time of this case, presents himself as
above callous self-interest, plaintively asking if there is any spirit of humanity that is working in
the hearts of men (LGJ 206). However, he also constructs himself as sagacious and
experiencedhe mentions that he has been practicing law a good deal longer than [he] should
havefor forty-five or forty-six years, and that this span has made him more inclined to make
some allowances for his fellow man (LGJ 168, 166). The prosecutor, in contrast, is youthful,
callous. When he matures, he will read his address to this court with horror.

Darrow also constructs the judge as old. When he describes the youth of Mr. Savage to
the judge, he says that the prosecutor will have a calmer disposition when he is [Darrows] age,
or even yours (LGJ 166). He also compliments the court in its experiencejudgmentand
kindliness (LGJ 167). By constructing the judge as old, Darrow encourages him to be more
equivocal, more pensive, or as Aristotle states, to love as if [he] would one day hate and hate as
if [he] would one day love (2.13.4). This discourages the judge from engaging in the sort of
moral certainty required to sentence Leopold and Loeb to death.
Clarence Darrow convinced the judge that this case not a lone event, but a piece of
precedent that, for good or for ill, would affect how everyone, from the public to the courts,
treated defendants and capital punishment. He made the case about legacy, but not just the
legacy of this particular trial. He exhorted the judge to put to rest the revenant influence old
capital punishment practices had on society. Darrow also demonstrated his abilities as a moral
gymnast. He reduced the murder of a child to something small, almost irrelevant to the trial. He
argued that two grown men who committed murder just to see if they could get away with it
were victims of arbitrary cruelty.

Works Cited
Aristotle. On Rhetoric. Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.
Lief, Michael S, H. Mitchell Caldwell, and Ben Bycel. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury. New York:
Touchstone, 2000. Print.