Page:The plea of Clarence Darrow, August 22nd, 23rd & 25th, MCMXXIII, in defense of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr., on trial for murder.djvu/118

 man can do. He was not a boy; a boy that is the special ward of the state, and the special ward of the court, and who cannot act except in special ways because he is not mature. He was twenty-eight and he is not dead and will not die. His life was saved, and you may go over every hanging, and if your Honor shall decorate the gallows with these two boys, your Honor will be the first in Chicago who has ever done such a deed. And, I know you will not.

Your Honor, I must hasten along, for I will close tonight. I know I should have closed before. Still there seems so much that I would like to say. I will spend a few more minutes on this record of hangings. There was one boy nineteen years old, Thomas Schultz, who was convicted by a jury and executed. There was one boy who has been referred to here, eighteen, Nicholas Viani, who was convicted by a jury and executed. No one else under twenty-one, your Honor, has been convicted by a jury and sentenced to death. Now, let me speak a word about these.

Schultz was convicted in 1912. Viani was convicted in 1920. Of course, I believe it should not have happened, but your Honor knows the difference between a plea of guilty and a verdict. It is easy enough for a jury to divide the responsibility by twelve. They have not the age and the experience and the charity which comes from age and experience. It is easy for some State's Attorneys to influence some juries. I don't know who defended the poor boy, but I guarantee that it was not the best lawyers at the bar,—but doubtless a good lawyer prosecuted him, and when he was convicted the court said that he had rested his fate with the jury, and he would not disturb the verdict.

I do not know whether your Honor, humane and