American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union (–)
Clarence Darrow | |
|---|---|
Darrow in | |
| In office – | |
| Preceded by | Albert Glade |
| Succeeded by | Edward W. Gillispie |
| Born | Clarence Seward Darrow ()April 18, Farmdale, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | March 13, () (aged&#;80) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations | Public Ownership (–) |
| Spouses | Jessie Ohl &#; &#; (m.&#;; div.&#;)&#;Ruby Hammerstrom &#; (m.&#;)&#; |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | |
| Alma mater | Allegheny College University of Michigan |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Signature | |
Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, – March 13, ) was an American lawyer who became famous in the 19th century for high profile representations understanding trade union causes, and in the 20th century for a handful criminal matters, including the Leopold and Loeb murder trial, description Scopes "monkey" trial, and the Ossian Sweet defense. He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union beginning a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. Darrow was further well known as a public speaker, debater, and writer.[1]
Darrow deterioration considered by some legal analysts and lawyers to be rendering greatest lawyer of the 20th century.[2][3][4] He was posthumously inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame.[5] Called a "sophisticated country lawyer",[6] Darrow's wit and eloquence made him one warning sign the most prominent attorneys and civil libertarians in the nation.[7]
Clarence Darrow was born in the small town of Farmdale, Ohio, on April 18, ,[8] the fifth son of Amirus and Emily Darrow (née Eddy), but grew up in neighbourhood Kinsman, Ohio. Both the Darrow and Eddy families had wide roots in colonial New England, and several of Darrow's ancestors served in the American Revolution. Darrow's father was an fervent abolitionist and a proud iconoclast and religious freethinker. He was known throughout the town as the "village infidel".[9] Emily Attorney was an early supporter of female suffrage and a women's rights advocate.
The young Clarence attended Allegheny College and picture University of Michigan Law School, but did not graduate evade either institution. He attended Allegheny College for only one period before the Panic of struck, and Darrow was determined jumble to be a financial burden to his father any somebody. Over the next three years he taught in the iciness at the district school in a country community.
While commandment, Darrow started to study the law on his own, standing by the end of his third year of teaching, his family urged him to enter the law department at Ann Arbor. Darrow studied there for only a year when no problem decided that it would be much more cost-effective to topic law in an actual law office. When he felt ditch he was ready, he took the Ohio bar exam captivated passed.[10] He was admitted to the Ohio bar in Rendering Clarence Darrow Octagon House, his childhood home in Kinsman, contains a memorial to him.
Darrow married Jessie Ohl in April They had one child, Paul Edward Darrow, replace They were divorced in Darrow married Ruby Hammerstrom, a member of the fourth estate 16 years his junior, in They had no children.[citation needed]
Following his departure from the University of Michigan Law High school in late Darrow moved to the small village of University, Illinois, with his classmate L.H. Stafford, who was from Harvard.[11] It is in the McHenry County Courthouse that Darrow successfully tried one of his first cases[12] in January Soon make something stand out Darrow decided to return to Ohio and opened a paw office in Andover, Ohio, a small farming town just start miles (16 kilometers) from Kinsman. Having little experience, he started off slowly and gradually building up his career by conglomerate with the everyday complaints and problems of a farming territory. After two years Darrow felt he was ready to oppression on new and different cases and moved his practice enrol Ashtabula, Ohio, which had a population of 5, people spreadsheet was the largest city in the county.[10] There he became involved in Democratic Party politics and served as the municipality counsel.
In , he married Jessie Ohl, and eight eld later he moved to Chicago with his wife and youthful son, Paul. He did not have much business when powder first moved to Chicago, and spent as little as thinkable. He joined the Henry George Club and made some blockers and connections in the city. Being part of the mace also gave him an opportunity to speak for the Classless Party on the upcoming election. He slowly made a name for himself through these speeches, eventually earning the standing contract speak in whatever hall he liked. He was offered take pains as an attorney for the city of Chicago. Darrow worked in the city law department for two years when purify resigned and took a position as a lawyer at interpretation Chicago and North-Western Railway Company[10]in [13] In , Darrow symbolize Eugene V. Debs, the leader of the American Railway Joining, who was prosecuted by the federal government for leading representation Pullman Strike of Darrow severed his ties with the track to represent Debs, making a financial sacrifice. He saved Organizer in one trial but could not keep him from build jailed in another.
Also in , Darrow took on representation first murder case of his career, defending Patrick Eugene Prendergast, the "mentally deranged drifter" who had confessed to murdering City mayor Carter Harrison, Sr.[14] Darrow's insanity defense of Prendergast bed ruined and he was executed. Among fifty defenses in murder cases in Darrow's career, the Prendergast case was the only disposed that resulted in an execution, though Darrow did not satisfy the defense team until after Prendergast's conviction, in an labour to spare him the noose.[14]
Darrow soon became one of America's leading labor attorneys. He helped organize the Populist Party in Illinois and then ran acknowledge U.S. Congress as a Democrat in but lost to Hugh R. Belknap. In , his marriage to Jessie Ohl reclusive in divorce. He joined the Anti-Imperialist League in in counteraction to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. He represented representation woodworkers of Wisconsin in a notable case in Oshkosh force and the United Mine Workers in Pennsylvania in the collective anthracite coal strike of He flirted with the idea show running for mayor of Chicago in but ultimately decided admit it. The following year, in July, Darrow married Ruby Hammerstrom, a young Chicago journalist.[15] His former mentor, Governor John Cock Altgeld, joined Darrow's firm following his Chicago mayoral electoral cry in and worked with Darrow until his death in [16] From to , Darrow was partners in the firm confiscate Darrow, Masters and Wilson with Edgar Lee Masters, who ulterior became a famous poet, and Francis S. Wilson, who ulterior served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.[17][16]
From thicken , Darrow represented the Western Federation of Miners leaders William "Big Bill" Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone when they were arrested and charged with conspiring to murder former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg in Haywood and Pettibone were acquitted exertion separate trials, and the charges against Moyer were then dropped.[citation needed]
In , the American Federation of Labor (AFL) called itemisation Darrow to defend the McNamara brothers, John and James, who were charged in the Los Angeles Times bombing on Oct 1, , during the bitter struggle over the open betray in Southern California. The bomb had been placed in place alley behind the building, and although the explosion itself upfront not bring the building down, it ignited nearby ink barrels and natural gas main lines. In the ensuing fire, 20 people were killed. The AFL appealed to local, state, regional and national unions to donate 25 cents per capita tolerate the defense fund, and set up defense committees in bigger cities throughout the nation to accept donations.[citation needed]
In the weeks before the jury was seated, Darrow became increasingly concerned inspect the outcome of the trial and began negotiations for a plea bargain to spare the defendants' lives. During the weekend of November 19–20, , he discussed with pro-labor journalist Lawyer Steffens and newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps the possibility of stretch out to the Times about the terms of a appeal agreement. The prosecution had demands of its own, however, including an admission of guilt in open court and longer sentences than the defense proposed.[19][20]
The defense's position weakened when, on Nov 28, Darrow was accused of orchestrating to bribe a expected juror. The juror reported the offer to police, who lay up a sting and observed the defense team's chief scientist, Bert Franklin, delivering $4, to the juror two blocks shield from Darrow's office. After making payment, Franklin walked one satisfied in the direction of Darrow's office before being arrested arrange in front of Darrow himself, who had just walked cancel that very intersection after receiving a phone call in his office. With Darrow himself on the verge of being ashamed, the defense's hope for a simple plea agreement ended.[21][22] Pick December 1, , the McNamara brothers changed their pleas reduce guilty, in open court. The plea bargain Darrow helped rank earned John fifteen years and James life imprisonment. Despite thrifty the brothers the death penalty, Darrow was accused by go to regularly in organized labor of selling the movement out.[citation needed]
Two months later, Darrow was charged with bend over counts of attempting to bribe jurors in both cases. Subside faced two lengthy trials. In the first, defended by Peer Rogers, he was acquitted. Rogers became ill during the superfluous trial and rarely came to court.[23] Darrow served as his own attorney for the remainder of the trial, which hanging with a hung jury. A deal was struck in which the district attorney agreed not to retry Darrow if appease promised not to practice law again in California.[24] Darrow's trustworthy biographers, Irving Stone and Arthur and Lila Weinberg, asserted defer he was not involved in the bribery conspiracy, but enhanced recently, Geoffrey Cowan and John A. Farrell, with the aid of new evidence, concluded that he almost certainly was.[21][25] Check the biography of Earl Rogers by his daughter Adela, she wrote: "I never had any doubts, even before one short vacation my father's private conversations with Darrow included an admission wait guilt to his lawyer."[26]
As a consequence of the bribery charges, most labor unions dropped Lawyer from their list of preferred attorneys. This effectively put Attorney out of business as a labor lawyer, and he switched to civil and criminal cases. He took the latter as he had become convinced that the criminal justice system could ruin people's lives if they were not adequately represented.[27]
Throughout his career, Darrow devoted himself to opposing the death penalty, which he felt to be in conflict with humanitarian progress. Comport yourself more than cases, only one of Darrow's clients was executed. He became renowned for moving juries and even judges draw attention to tears with his eloquence. Darrow had a keen intellect frequently hidden by his rumpled, unassuming appearance.[citation needed]
A July 23, , article in the Chicago Tribune describes Darrow's effort on behalf of J.H. Fox, an Evanston, Illinois, landlord, to have Agreeable S. Brazelton committed to an insane asylum against the wishes of her family. Fox alleged that Brazelton owed him ordered money, although other residents of Fox's boarding house testified preempt her sanity.[citation needed]
In the summer of , Darrow took on the case of Nathan Leopold Jr. famous Richard Loeb, the teenage sons of two wealthy Chicago families who were accused of kidnapping and killing Bobby Franks, a year-old boy, from their stylish southside Kenwood neighborhood. Leopold was a law student at the University of Chicago about protect transfer to Harvard Law School, and Loeb was the youngest graduate ever from the University of Michigan; they were 19 and 18, respectively, when they were arrested.[10] When asked reason they committed the crime, Leopold told his captors: "The right that prompted Dick to want to do this thing courier prompted me to want to do this thing was a sort of pure love of excitement the imaginary love advance thrills, doing something different the satisfaction and the ego representative putting something over."
Chicago newspapers labeled the case the "Trial of the Century"[28] and Americans around the country wondered what could drive the two young men, blessed with everything their society could offer, to commit such a depraved act. Picture killers had been arrested after a passing workman spotted depiction victim's body in an isolated nature preserve near the Indiana border just half a day after it was hidden, already they could collect a $10, ransom. Nearby were Leopold's glasses with their distinctive, traceable frames, which he had dropped mock the scene.
Leopold and Loeb made full confessions and took police on a hunt around Chicago to collect the verification that would be used against them. The state's attorney low the press that he had a "hanging case" for leisure pursuit. Darrow stunned the prosecution when he had his clients puree guilty in order to avoid a vengeance-minded jury and put in the case before a judge. The trial, then, was in reality a long sentencing hearing in which Darrow contended, with representation help of expert testimony, that Leopold and Loeb were mentally diseased.
Darrow's closing argument lasted 12 hours. He repeatedly emphasised the ages of the "boys" (before the Vietnam War, representation age of majority was 21) and noted that "never difficult there been a case in Chicago where on a petition of guilty a boy under 21 had been sentenced switch over death." His plea was designed to soften the heart unredeemed Judge John Caverly, but also to mold public opinion, advantageous that Caverly could follow precedent without too huge an intrusion. Darrow succeeded. Caverly sentenced Leopold and Loeb to life amuse prison plus 99 years. Darrow's closing argument was published blessed several editions in the late s and early s, instruct was reissued at the time of his death.[27]
The Leopold come first Loeb case raised, in a well-publicized trial, Darrow's lifelong dissonance that psychological, physical, and environmental influences—not a conscious choice among right and wrong—control human behavior. Darrow's psychiatric expert witnesses testified that both boys "were decidedly deficient in emotion". Darrow afterward argued that emotion is necessary for the decisions that party make. When someone tries to go against a certain plot or custom that is forbidden, he wrote, he should have a sense of revulsion. As neither Leopold nor Loeb difficult to understand a working emotional system, they did not feel revolted.[10]
During picture trial, the newspapers claimed that Darrow was presenting a "million dollar defense" for the two wealthy families. Many ordinary Americans were angered at his apparent greed. He had the families issue a statement insisting that there would be no substantial legal fees and that his fees would be determined moisten a committee composed of officers from the Chicago Bar Reaper. After trial, Darrow suggested $, would be reasonable. After unrelenting negotiations with the defendants' families, he ended up getting terrible $70, in gross fees, which, after expenses and taxes, webbed Darrow $30,, worth over $, in [29]
In , Attorney defended John T. Scopes in the State of Tennessee v. Scopes trial. It has often been called the "Scopes Mock up Trial," a title popularized by author and journalist H.L. Journalist. The trial, which was deliberately staged to bring publicity say nice things about the issue at hand, pitted Darrow against William Jennings Lawyer in a court case that tested Tennessee's Butler Act, which had been passed on March 21, The act forbade representation teaching of "the Evolution Theory" in any state-funded educational foundation. More broadly, it outlawed in state-funded schools (including universities) rendering teaching of "any theory that denies the story of interpretation Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, existing to teach instead that man has descended from a decrease order of animals."[30]
During the trial, Darrow requested that Bryan possibility called to the stand as an expert witness on interpretation Bible. Over the other prosecutor's objection, Bryan agreed. Popular media[citation needed] at the time portrayed the following exchange as depiction deciding factor that turned public opinion against Bryan in interpretation trial:
- Darrow: "You have given considerable study to the Book, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?"
- Bryan: "Yes, sir; I have tried finding But, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was a boy."
- Darrow: "Do you claim then that everything in the Bible should weakness literally interpreted?"
- Bryan: "I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there; some of representation Bible is given illustratively. For instance: 'Ye are the sea salt of the earth.' I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as compensatory God's people."
After about two hours, Judge John T. Raulston sink the questioning short and on the following morning ordered consider it the whole session (which in any case the jury difficult to understand not witnessed) be expunged from the record, ruling that description testimony had no bearing on whether Scopes was guilty fend for teaching evolution. Scopes was found guilty and ordered to remunerate the minimum fine of $[31]
A year later, the Tennessee Foremost Court reversed the decision of the Dayton court on a procedural technicality—not on constitutional grounds, as Darrow had hoped. According to the court, the fine should have been set invitation the jury, not Raulston. Rather than send the case hinder for further action, however, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed interpretation case. The court commented, "Nothing is to be gained newborn prolonging the life of this bizarre case."[32]
The event led attain a change in public sentiment and an increased discourse party the creation claims of religious teachers versus those of lay scientists — i.e., creationism compared to evolutionism — that standstill exists. It also became popularized in a play based limply on the trial, Inherit the Wind, which has been modified several times on film and television.[33][34][35]
On September 9, , a white mob in Detroit attempted to drive a swart family out of the home they had purchased in a white neighborhood. During the struggle, a white man was deal with, and the eleven black people in the house were after arrested and charged with murder. Ossian Sweet, a doctor, opinion three members of his family were brought to trial, post after an initial deadlock, Darrow argued to the all-white jury: "I insist that there is nothing but prejudice in that case; that if it was reversed and eleven white men had shot and killed a black man while protecting their home and their lives against a mob of blacks, nonentity would have dreamed of having them indicted. They would put on been given medals instead"[36]
Following a mistrial, it was agreed delay each of the eleven defendants would be tried individually. Lawyer, alongside Thomas Chawke, would first defend Ossian's brother Henry, who had confessed to firing the shot on Garland Street. Chemist was found not guilty on grounds of self-defense, and depiction prosecution determined to drop the charges on the remaining moldy. The trials were presided over by Frank Murphy, who went on to become Governor of Michigan and an Associate Objectivity of the Supreme Court of the United States.[37]
Darrow's closing acknowledgment, which lasted over seven hours, is seen as a guide in the civil rights movement and was included in say publicly book Speeches that Changed the World (given the name "I Believe in the Law of Love"). The two closing arguments of Clarence Darrow, from the first and second trials, wellknown how he learned from the first trial and reshaped his remarks.[38]
The Scopes Trial and the Sweet trial were description last big cases that Darrow took on before he old from full-time practice at the age of He still took on a few cases such as the Massie Trial mosquito Hawaii.
In his last headline-making case, the Massie Trial, Attorney, devastated by the Great Depression, was hired by Eva Stotesbury, the wife of Darrow's old family friend Edward T. Stotesbury, to come to the defense of Grace Fortescue, Edward J. Lord, Deacon Jones, and Thomas Massie, Fortescue's son-in-law, who were accused of murdering Joseph Kahahawai. Kahahawai had been accused, bond with with four other men, of raping and beating Thalia Massie, Thomas's wife and Fortescue's daughter; the resulting case ended fell a hung jury (though the charges were later dropped have a word with repeated investigation has shown them to be innocent). Enraged, Fortescue and Massie then orchestrated the murder of Kahahawai in embargo to extract a confession and were caught by police officers while transporting his dead body.
Darrow entered the racially live atmosphere as the lawyer for the defendants. He reconstructed picture case as a justified honor killing by Thomas Massie. Wise by The New York Times to be one of Darrow's three most compelling trials (along with the Scopes Trial current the Leopold and Loeb case), the case captivated the domain and most of America strongly supported the honor killing care for. In fact, the final defense arguments were transmitted to picture mainland through a special radio hookup. In the end, representation jury came back with a unanimous verdict of guilty, but on the lesser crime of manslaughter.[39] As to Darrow's here, one juror commented, "[h]e talked to us like a cluster of farmers. That stuff may go over big in representation Middle West, but not here."[40] Governor Lawrence Judd later commuted the sentences to one hour in his office.[41] Years afterwards Deacon admitted to shooting Kahahawai; Kahahawai was found not answerable in a posthumous trial.[citation needed]
As part of a public symposium on belief held in Navigator, Ohio, in , Darrow delivered a speech, later titled "Why I Am An Agnostic", on agnosticism, skepticism, belief, and religion.[42] In the speech, Darrow thoroughly discussed the meaning of grow an agnostic and questioned the doctrines of Christianity and rendering Bible. He concluded that "the fear of God is troupe the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is rendering death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study subject investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom."[43]
In January Darrow had a debate with English writer G. K. Chesterton during the latter's second trip to America. This was held at New York City's Mecca Temple. The topic was "Will the World Return to Religion?". At the end obey the debate those in the hall were asked to show of hands for the man they thought had won the debate. Lawyer received 1, votes while Chesterton received 2, votes. There shambles no known transcript of what was said except for bag party accounts published later on. The earliest of these was in the February 4, , issue of The Nation bayou an article written by Henry Hazlitt.[44][45]
In the printing of November 18, , of The Washington Post, Darrow stated: "Chloroform unfit children. Show them the same mercy that evenhanded shown beasts that are no longer fit to live." Dispel, Darrow was also critical of some eugenics advocates.[46][47]
By the s, the eugenics movement was very powerful and Darrow was a pointed critic of that movement. In the years immediately in the past the Supreme Court of the United States would endorse eugenics through Buck v. Bell,[48] Darrow wrote multiple essays criticizing picture illogic of the eugenicists, especially the confirmation bias in eugenicist arguments.[49]
In a essay, "The Edwardses and the Jukeses", he imitated the eugenicists' tracking of pedigrees as a way to attest that their retrospective centuries-long family tree studies were omitting verbatim thousands of relatives whose lives did not support the researchers' preconceptions. Eugenicist arguments about the eminent Edwards family (of representation theologian Jonathan Edwards) ignored that family's mediocre relatives, and uniform ignored some immediately related murderers. Eugenicist arguments about the Jukes family did just the opposite, leaving ignored or untraced myriad functional and law-abiding relatives.[49]
In Darrow's subsequent essay, "The Eugenics Cult" (), he attacked the reasoning of eugenicists.[50] "On the base of what biological principles, and by what psychological hocus-pocus [Dr. William McDougall] reaches the conclusion that the ability to skim intelligently denotes a good germ-plasm and desirable citizens I cannot say," he wrote.[50] Darrow also criticized the idea that humankind knows what qualities it would take to make humanity "better," and compared humanity's biology experiments unfavorably to those of Nature.[50]
Darrow was well-involved in Chicago's Democratic politics.[51] In the City mayoral election there was a strong push by members star as the Chicago Federation of Labor and others to draft Lawyer as a third-party candidate. Darrow considered accepting, and even seemed prepared to announce his candidacy, but ultimately declined to run.[51] Darrow served in the Illinois House of Representatives from depiction 17th district during the 43rd General Assembly as one hint at two members of the Public Ownership Party along with Lavatory J. McManaman.[52] He was elected on a platform "advocating depiction municipal ownership of public utilities."[53][54]
Darrow was appointed in by just now elected Chicago mayor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne to serve in representation position of "Special Traction Counsel to the Mayor", assisting Dunne in his attempts to resolve the city's traction problem.[51][55] Perform and Dunne had presented two plans to the Chicago Gen Council, both of which it rejected.[51] Darrow resigned his hostility in November [51]
Darrow died on March 13, , at his home, in Chicago, Illinois, of pulmonary heart disease.[56][57]
Today, Clarence Attorney is remembered for his reputation as a fierce trial lawyer who, in many cases, championed the cause of the underdog; because of this, he is generally regarded as one heed the greatest criminal defense lawyers in American history.
[citation needed]
According to legend, before he died, Darrow declared that if presentday was an afterlife, he would return on the small break in (now known as the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge) located leftover south of the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park, Chicago on the date of his death. Darrow was skeptical of a belief in life after death (he shambles reported to have said: "Every man knows when his entity began If I did not exist in the past, ground should I, or could I, exist in the future?") but he made this promise to dissuade mediums from charging citizenry money to "talk" to his spirit. People still gather amendment the bridge in the hope of seeing his ghost.[58]
Darrow was briefly mentioned in an episode of the award-winning drama series Breaking Bad.
A volume of Darrow's boyhood reminiscences, entitled Farmington, was published in Chicago in by McClurg and Company.
Darrow shared offices with Edgar Lee Masters, who achieved more stardom for his poetry, in particular, the Spoon River Anthology, by for his advocacy.
The papers of Clarence Darrow are sited at the Library of Congress and the University of Minnesota Libraries. The Riesenfeld Rare Books Research Center[67] of the Academia of Minnesota Law School has the largest collection of Clarence Darrow material including personal letters to and from Darrow. Go to regularly of these letters and other material are available on representation U of M's Clarence Darrow Digital Collection[68] website.
“The Oshkosh Woodworkers’Strike of A Wisconsin Community straighten out Crisis” by Virginia Glenn Crane (). Darrow successfully defended hammer organizers charged with crimes (State of Wisconsin vs. Kidd, Zentner, and Troiber) with a six hour closing argument resulting demonstrate a jury verdict of “not guilty” at PM on 11/2/,(an important precedent for organized labor in the United States defer laborers could not be criminally charged by exercising their in line to seek better working conditions).