The Leopold and Loeb Case and the Development of the Insanity Plea

The "Perfect Crime."

On 21 May 1924 Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, teenage scions of wealthy Jewish families in Chicago, lured fourteen-year-old Robert Franks, whom they barely knew, into their automobile, bludgeoned him to death with a hammer, and threw his body into a culvert in a nearby public park. They had randomly selected Franks as the victim of their "perfect crime," thinking that they had planned their "caper" so carefully that they would escape detection. Yet Leopold had inadvertently left his prescription eyeglasses at the scene, and the police had both murderers in custody by the end of the month.

Hiring Clarence Darrow.

On 2 June the Leopold and Loeb families retained the well-known attorney Clarence Darrow, believing he could use his influence to "make an arrangement" that would save the youths from the electric chair. From the outset the guilt of Leopold and Loeb was never in question. Both of them...

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