Clarence Darrow

For many reasons, I have been captivated by Clarence Darrow for over a year or more now. I narrowly missed reading about him when I first came to know of the Leopold and Loeb case after watching Hitchcock’s Rope. But, fortunately, I came across him on two separate occasions :

1. When reading Inherit the Wind, the play that denounces McCarthyism under the context of a trial on the controversial Theory of Evolution.

2. When looking up racism and miscarriage of justice in law,

1 , of course, is a liberal dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial.

2 lead me to the Sweet Trials.

1 and 2 both lead me to Clarence Darrow. I discovered that these two trials, involved the same lawyer who saved Leopold and Loeb from the gallows. I dug a little deeper into the sensational Chicago trial (technically a ‘hearing’ as Leopold and Loeb pleaded ‘Guilty’ at Darrow’s insistence). In the process, I was completely and entirely bowled over by Clarence Darrow. This man is one of the rare manifestations of kindness – “an all encompassing kindness for humanity” is how Leopold described him. His 12 hour plus closing statement during the sensational hearing moved me even after 70 years, just like it did to all those people in the court room. This man attributed the blame to everybody, including Nietzsche, for the duo’s crimes, but he didn’t diminish their moral responsibility.

His Sweet Trials defense was more powerful. The whole Sweet saga is one of maddening racism and injustice. There was only one man between the jury of 12 white men and Henry Sweet. That was a 63 year old man who believed in human goodness. Darrow had moral courage to stand up and defend what he believed was just. And he did it not just for the money or for justice or a sense of duty towards society. It was something more – perhaps because his “all encompassing kindness for humanity.”

Not enough books are written about him outside the law circle, and his autobiography is out of print.

If I had met him, I would have kissed his hand. For being the brilliant spark of conscience he was for us.