Darrow Death Penalty

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb stand guilty of the motiveless and random murder of fourteen year-old Bobby Franks in August of 1924. Intellectual and wealthy, the criminals stand to gain nothing from the senseless slaughter, yet commit the act nonetheless. Neither boy denies the killing, as their defense attorney Clarence Darrow pleads guilty on their behalf. Yet despite guilt, the trial continues, as Darrow fights the proposal of capital punishment for the two boys. Throughout his entire career, not one of Darrow’s clients ever receives the death penalty (Safire 370). Darrow’s tendency to defend the admitted guilty, often pro bono, permits for an interesting form of speech to come to light, as his pleas bear a sense of nobility for they

Arguing in favor of a life sentence, Darrow utilizes loaded diction to exaggerate the suffering endured in a life sentence in order to promote this form of justice over the death penalty, which he purports as a weaker punishment. Before juxtaposing the forms of punishment, Darrow initiates his argument by establishing the utter hopelessness of Leopold and Loeb’s continued existence as he claims they bear, “little to look forward to, if anything” (Darrow). By establishing that Leopold and Loeb lie at a figurative rock bottom, Darrow bestows upon himself the ability to propose to the court which punishment could possibly do more harm, as the boys lack anywhere to go besides up. Darrow utilizes this framework to his advantage as, if a verdict were to benefit the boys in any way, then that verdict would be unjust. Using this framework, Darrow analyzes the effects of a death penalty, arguing that do kill the boys would in fact be “merciful to them” for it would spare the pain of living on in a world with no possible hope (Darrow). Where they currently lie at the absolute bottom, the death penalty would aid them in providing a swift end to this suffering, Darrow argues. Darrow goes on to juxtapose swift, “merciful” demise to life in prison (Darrow). Where the death penalty is painless, life in prison provides unending torment according to Darrow as he claims to do

Arguing for insanity, Darrow’s imagery reopens deep scars in the jury as he passionately recalls the war between Americans, a war so devastating, so bloody, so amoral, that it wounds the Leopold and Loeb boys beyond repair – beyond the point of human sympathy, a sympathy robbed of them by the culture they are raised in – the culture that disregards the value of human life. Darrow’s use of exaggeration and discussion of an institutional system of warmongering enforces his pathos upon the jury, as he reinterprets Leopold and Loeb’s senseless killing as an act of insanity. Utilizing the war as a cause for madness, Darrow discusses how during this ongoing atrocity, “we were fed on flesh and drank blood” (Darrow). Darrow exaggerates these war crimes so as to further his point that not only did the Leopold and Loeb boys witness these acts, but are warped by them to the point of insanity, a breaking point caused not by their own fault, but by society-at-large as Darrow transfers this guilt on to the jury. The insanity plea works two-fold as it not only eliminates the boys’ responsibility for their actions, but also lays blame on the entire jury, preventing them from indicting the boys without indicting themselves also. Darrow’s descriptive imagery in this cannibalistic hyperbole intensifies the wounds once more on the morale of the jury, as he forges an emotional plea that visualizes the culture of