| 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. 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....[Cont.] |
