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Leopold and Loeb

STORY PREFACE

     http://awesomestories.com/images/user/05823455c5.jpg

                     Photograph depicting Nathan Leopold (left) and Richard Loeb in court, taken August 8, 1924. Image online, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.



Now hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are fluttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack
And leave your friends and go.
O never fear, lads, naught's to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There's nothing but the night.

From A Shropshire Lad (1896)
By A. E. Housman

 

It's September, 1924.  As Clarence Darrow - one of the most brilliant trial lawyers of the 20th century - quotes these words from A.E. Houseman, he is in the midst of a twelve-hour hearing, pleading for mercy in a Chicago courtroom. The public outcry has been

No mercy!!

The defendants, 19-year-old Nathan Leopold and 18-year-old Richard Loeb, had viciously kidnapped and killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks. Had they shown mercy to him?

 

Author: Carole D. Bos, J.D.

 

Key to Color-Coded Links

Original Release Date:  October, 1999
Updated Quarterly, or as Needed