University of Cebu - Banilad

Gov. M. Cuenco Ave. Cebu City, Cebu 6000

A CASE STUDY ON

State of Illinois vs Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb

Presented to:
Attorney Joe Vinson Empaces
Legal Technique and Logic Professor

Presented by:

Caballes, Serah Joy G.

M6 JD 1

MARCH 2020
CONTENTS
Case Synopsis
Goals and Objectives of the Case Study
Analysis and Discussion
Case Synopsis
The case of State of Illinois vs Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb
lasted for only a month but it was labeled as the “Case od the Century”
in 1924. Many books, articles and commentaries resurfaced from the
said case that even up to now is still of relevance.

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb came from highly privileged

Chicago families. At 19, Leopold was already a University of Chicago
graduate and spoke 14 languages. 18-year-old Richard was the
youngest graduate in the history of the University of Michigan. Leopold
would describe the two as evil geniuses who were above ordinary
standards of morality.1

Leopold and Loeb, guilty of the crime kidnapping and killing a 14

year old boy named Robert (“Bobby”) Franks. The said crimes
committed against Bobby took place in Chicago. During their confession
both criminals confessed that their motivation to commit such crime was
to suffice their thirst for sensation in conducting experiments and to gain
$10,000 from the Franks.

21st of May 1924 in the afternoon, Bobby Franks was walking

home from school when a automobile pulled up near him. Loeb asked
Franks to come over to the car, then both men killed him with a chisel.
Leopold and Loeb drove their rented car to a marshland near the Indiana
line, where they stripped Franks naked, poured hydrochloric acid over
his body to make identification more difficult, then stuffed the body in a
concrete drainage culvert.
1
Leopold and Loeb: The Judge's Decision (Digital History ID 1115)
 Clarence Darrow and Benjamin Bachrach were hired by the
families of the criminals to defend them in court for 33 days in July up to
August 1924. Darrow offered an appeal basing on the age and sanity of
the two convicted murderers against capital punishment. 2Darrow
attacked the death penalty as atavistic, saying it "roots back to the beast
and the jungle." Time and time again Darrow challenged the notion of
"an eye for an eye": "If the state in which I live is not kinder, more
humane, and more considerate than the mad act of these two boys, I am
sorry I have lived so long." Darrow told Judge Caverly that a life
sentence was punishment severe enough for the crime. 

The defense presented extensive psychiatric evidence describing

the defendants' emotional immaturity, obsessions with crime and
Nietzschean philosophy, alcohol abuse, glandular abnormalities, and
sexual longings and insecurities.

Two weeks later Caverly announced his decision. He called the

murder "a crime of singular atrocity." Caverly said that his "judgment
cannot be affected" by the causes of crime and that it was "beyond the
province of this court" to "predicate ultimate responsibility for human
acts." Nonetheless, Caverly said that "the consideration of the age of the
defendants" and the possible benefits to criminology that might come
from future study of them persuaded him that life in prison, not death,

2
The Leopold And Loeb Trial
A tragedy of three young lost lives, a dead fourteen-year-old victim and the imprisonment of two
teenage killers, unfolded in Chicago in 1924
was the better punishment. He said that he was doing them no favor: 3
"To the offenders, particularly of the type they are, the prolonged years
of confinement may well be the severest form of retribution and
expiation."

What caught the attention of the press and the whole world was
not the fact that the two murderers were both sons of prominent
and very wealthy families but how Darrow made an appeal that
directed the court to decide life imprisonment instead of
sentencing Loeb and Leopold to death penalty.

3
Leopold and Loeb: AMERICAN MURDERERS
Goals and Objectives of the Case Study

The attitude of enlightened thought to the death penalty was

highlighted by the 1924 case of Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb 4.

The defense had offered the testimony of many psychiatrists and

other physicians who had examined the boys. But in his closing
argument, Darrow did not rely on the science of mental health. Yes, he
said, nothing happens without a cause. And the boys did suffer some
defects, perhaps defective nerves. But he, in effect, dismissed the
experts’ testimony: “I want to say, your honor, that you may cut out every
expert in this case . . . you may decide this case on the facts as they
appear here alone; and there is no sort of question that these boys were
mentally diseased.”5

The goal of this case study is to provide adequate analysis and a

thorough discussion on the legal techniques used by the defense
counsel that led the court into concluding the case with a decision of life
imprisonment instead of death penalty.

Furthermore, in this paper contains the objectives of the case

study presented which is to allow students with real expertise and
understanding, as well as judgement to excel in identifying the loops and
holes of being in court, that through the case of Leopold and Loeb, they
would be able to identify and propose options as to regards to the
decision of the court, legal techniques used by the two opposing
4
Saved from the Gallows The Trial of Leopold and Loeb
5
Closing Argument The State of Illinois v. Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb
Delivered by Clarence Darrow Chicago, Illinois, August 22, 1924
counsels making students to risk judgments on uncertain situations,
raising their critical thinking.

Analysis and Discussion

 “Everyone who advocates capital punishment is really ashamed of
the practice for which he is responsible. Instead of urging public
executions, the most advanced and sensitive who believe in killing by
the state are now advocating that even the newspapers should not
publish the details and that the killing should be done in darkness and
silence.”6

During the time of the press and public frenzy, the case was used
by defense counsel Darrow to open the eyes and the minds of the public
to how barbaric and inhumane capital punishment is.

Many scholars understood that crime is the result of social

inequality and poverty. Throughout Darrow’s career he had seen how
the death penalty had been used as a weapon by the magnates of
capital to terrorize the working class.

Leopold and Loeb may not be seen by legal standards as insane,

however both criminals show signs of being two disturbed boys despite
the fact they were two extremely promising scholars that came from
prestigious families.7 The press did not miss that part and their
reputation has been tainted already by the articles released during their
trial putting the decision in the hands of a jury would lead the two
criminals into death penalty and that is not what Darrow aims to do. He
navigated through the rules and procedures of the court making
Leopold and Loeb plead guilty to murder for he knew perfectly well that
when the responsibility rests in the jury they will have them away
towards death Instead, he decided to place the question of sentencing in
6
"Another Study of Slayers," Chicago Daily Tribune, June 5, 1924,
7
 H. H. Robertson, "Sinister Compact of Boyhood Bound Slayers, Is Claim," The Atlanta 
Constitution, August 5, 1924
the hands of a judge.
    
The defense hoped to build its case against death around the
testimony of four psychiatrists. The four leading psychiatrists examined
Leopold and Loeb. Their testimonies build the foundation of the
defense’s argument that the boys were mentally ill and because of that
their punishment should be mitigated. The prosecution objected to
admitting the testimony of the psychiatrists, claiming such evidence was
only admissible in the case of an insanity plea. Judge John R. Caverly,
who presided over the sentencing, eventually ruled in favor of admitting
the psychiatrists’ testimony.
8
The conclusion reached by the psychiatrists for the prosecution
was, therefore, a correct one--there was no mental disease.

Certainly, the experts in the hearing are treated of equal authority

as psychiatrists, they are the ones who are in possession of the same
set of facts, who, nevertheless, gave out opinions on the condition of the
two prisoners that instead of seeking truth for its own sake and with no
preference as to what it turns out to be, they are the ones supporting,
and are expected to support, a predetermined purpose.

The court briefly examined on the mass of data produced as to the

physical, mental, and moral condition of the two defendants. It has been
known that it in essential requisites for abnormality the two criminal were
not normal but does not have any mental disease either. It came to a
close that it beyond the determination of the court, as it is beyond the
capacity of humankind in its present state of development to predicate
ultimate responsibility for human acts.

8
"Another Study of Slayers," Chicago Daily Tribune, June 5, 1924,
 At the same time, the court is willing to recognize that the careful
analysis made of the life history of the defendants and of their present
mental, emotional and ethical condition has been of extreme interest and
is a valuable contribution to criminology. And yet the court feels strongly
that similar analyses made of other persons accused of crime will
probably reveal similar or different abnormalities. The value of such tests
seems to lie in their applicability to crime and criminals in general.

Darrow decided that since he could not argue that they were
insane, he would try to prove that the two men were mentally diseased,
which would not excuse their guilt but could be a mitigating factor in their
sentencing. Darrow appealed to the mercy of the court in deciding the
punishment for Leopold and Loeb. In closing, Darrow provided an
eloquent speech where he arrow attacked the death penalty as atavistic
and told Judge Caverly that a life sentence was punishment severe
enough for the crime. He reminded the judge how little Leopold and
Loeb would have to look forward to in the long days, months, and years
ahead. Darrow’s speech made a tremendous public impression.

 Two weeks later Caverly announced his decision. He called the

murder "a crime of singular atrocity." Caverly said that his "judgment
cannot be affected" by the causes of crime and that it was "beyond the
province of this court" to "predicate ultimate responsibility for human
acts." Nonetheless, Caverly said that "the consideration of the age of the
defendants" and the possible benefits to criminology that might come
from future study of them persuaded him that life in prison, not death,
was the better punishment. He said that he was doing them no favor:
"To the offenders, particularly of the type they are, the prolonged years
of confinement may well be the severest form of retribution and
expiation."
 The verdict was a victory for the defense, a defeat for the state but
it is not for the court to say that he will not, in any case, enforce capital
punishment as an alternative, but the court believes it is within his
province to decline to impose the sentence of death on persons who are
not of full age. This determination appears to be in accordance with the
progress of criminal law all over the world and with the dictates of
enlightened humanity. More than that, it seems to be in accordance with
the precedents hitherto observed in this State. The records of Illinois
show only two cases of minors who were put to death by legal
process...to which number the court does not feel inclined to make an
addition.

Life imprisonment, at the moment, strikes the public imagination as

forcibly as would death by hanging, but to the offenders, particularly of
the type they are, the prolonged suffering of years of confinement may
well be the severest form of retribution and expiation.

“An eye for an eye,” is what some Americans would say

concerning the death penalty.9 The claims that capital punishment
reduces violent crime is inconclusive and certainly not proven. Darrow
believed that Executing an offender will be sending subliminal messages
regarding murder. The point of capital punishment is because the United
States government wants to express that killing is an intolerable crime.
By killing, an offender the government is contradicting itself. In addition,
the death penalty can be seen as revenge.

For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they

fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but
the results were inconclusive. No matter how anyone looks at it, no one
9
"Loeb 'Master' Of Leopold Under Solemn Pact Made; Sex Inferiority is Factor," Chicago 
Daily Tribune, July 28, 1924
can deny the fact that capital punishment is the killing of a living
breathing human being. A human with a mother and father, memories, a
favorite holiday, perhaps a pet, and a girlfriend or wife. This human has
made mistakes, of either his or her own volition, or the environment they
were raised in.

Needless to say, the issues raised by Darrow in this case are

hardly ever broached today, either in the courtroom, the legislative halls
or by the press. The US ruling class has shifted sharply to the right,
abandoning any pretense of an enlightened or egalitarian approach to
social questions. In its place, public discourse is saturated with the
ignorant and discredited nostrums of the past based on fear, religious
bigotry and cruelty. The term 'capital punishment' obscures the reality
that capital punishment is a fancy phrase for legally killing people.

Even though the arguments of Darrow as to the mitigating factors

of the case (age of the boys and the mental condition) was not
admitted10, his acts and efforts for the purpose of recognizing the
conducts of human that remained central to contemporary debates about
where to draw the line between individual motivation and external
influence. When can ignorance of the youth be used as defense for
perpetrators accused of heinous crimes? as citizens we try to
understand such questions. Perhaps this is where Darrow greatly
influenced us, to question on how society should create a balance
between individual responsibility for criminal actions with influences
outside the individual’s control and individual who willingly committed
crimes without influences.

10
Donald McRae, The Last Trials of Clarence Darrow