Professional Ethics and Accounting - Continuous Evaluation: A Comment on Clarence

Darrow- the world’s greatest trial lawyer - N.Bavithran (BC0140018)

There has been a lot of controversy over the life of Clarence Darrow from him being a
corporate lawyer to a labour attorney and later a well known criminal lawyer. Mr. Darrow is a
man of his words and can be said someone who did not think about the precedents and dared
to be himself and speak out for the needed. When Mr. Darrow appeared for the Wisconsin
woodworker’s conspiracy case he was labelled as the greatest labour attorneys he put up a
strong voice for the need for proper representation of the labor unions. One of the cases the
Darrow was well known for was the State v Sweet in the year 1925. Wherein he clearly took
at stand against racial discrimination the moment he started the argument he made it clear
that it should never be a question of race or colour. Therefore the sweets trail was a case
reflecting the racial tensions in Detroit when a white man attempted to drive away a black
family who came to live in a white neighbourhood but this led to death of the white men and
subsequently arrest of the 11 black men in the house was done and they were charged of
murder but darrow managed to bail him out on account of him firing for self defense the
judgement is one of the famous in civil rights movement. The one key technique darrow
followed while arguing the cases was he never tried to talk over any of the jury but on basis
of facts and put a reasonable stand for defence his arguments for the defence were never
tampered but was always on logical reasoning of the facts. He was a true civil right lawyer
and one who fought for human rights of the labourers. He had no faith in god or church but
only believed on the power of mercy hence he was always in support of retributive practices.
Darrow defended any client who came to him not based on the conception that whether he
win the case or not but based on the facts of the case and the understanding the criminal
mentality as to why he or she would have committed the crime. Therefore, his understanding
of a criminal mind and giving them a chance to correct themselves was remarkable for
example in the Leopold and Loeb case when it was clearly evident that the boys murdered
just for the sheer pleasure they go from it, Mr. Darrow represented them and defended and at
least freed them from death penalty the main reason how he was able to do it was that Mr.
Clearance Darrow did not just look at the act of murder in particular but saw the reasoning
behind why would anybody commit such crime hence he looked the economic and social
circumstances and mental insanity of an individual while defending the same. Therefore he
was the true defender of anybody who needed his support irrespective of them being a rapist
or murderer.