Infamous America - LEOPOLD & LOEB Ep. 3 | “Trial of the Century”

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

The families of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb hire the most famous defense attorney in America, Clarence Darrow, to keep their sons off death row. Darrow uses ingenious tactics, long-winded speeches and an army of psychiatrists in his defense of the killers. The courtroom spectacle is dubbed, The Trial of the Century. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials : blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A listener note. This series in this episode contains some sexual and violent material that some might find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Saturday, August 30th, 1924. Three months after the murder of Bobby Franks, the phone rang at the Kaverley residence. It was ten days before Judge John Kaverley was supposed to announce the sentences for Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. But he was at a funeral for a friend. So he wasn't home. His wife Charlotte nervously answered the phone.

She was becoming numb to the threats they received. There was a common theme. If the judge failed to send the two teenage murderers to the gallows, then John Cavarly would have to die. Charlotte listened to the man's deep voice on the other end of the line. It said, This is Captain Roberts of the police department. Your husband, the judge, was shot to death as he was entering the gate of Calvary's

cemetery. He is there now, come quick. Mrs. Caverley screamed. She yelled for the constable who guarded their house to get the car immediately. As their vehicles sped up to the gates of the cemetery, John Cavarly stood amongst his friends casually conversing. No assassination had taken place. It was a cruel hoax. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. and this season we're telling the story of two of the most notorious teenage murderers in American history. This is Chapter 3, The Trial of the Century. Sunday, June 1st, 1924, 11 days after the murder. Richard Loeb's father burst into Clarence Darrow's apartment as if he were shot out of a cannon.

He said he had to see the famous lawyer immediately. Darrow's wife, Ruby, said that her husband wasn't feeling, well and he was asleep. He should not be disturbed. But Jacob Loeb wasn't taking no for an answer. The only thing that mattered was keeping his son, Richard, from being hanged. 67-year-old Clarence Darrow, the most famous lawyer in America, had built his reputation on defending unpopular causes. A couple rich teenagers who had brutally murdered a 14-year-old neighbor for no apparent reason, other than a quick thrill, was certainly one of those causes. More importantly, Clarence Darrow was vehemently against the death penalty.

He believed it served no purpose but revenge, and it was not a deterrent to murder, as many argued. He took the Leopold and Loeb case for a $25,000 retainer and a $1 million budget. For Clarence Darrow, this was a big departure from his usual cases. He was used to fighting for the poor and downtrodden, for the underdog. but he also loved the spotlight, and there'd be none brighter than defending the two affluent intellectual Jewish teenagers.

The Loeb family had hired the perfect man for the job. Darrow not only had an expansive knowledge of the law, but he was a legendary public speaker. Meanwhile, the two killers, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, still failed to recognize the severity of their crime. They had yet to express an ounce

of remorse for the murder or any regret for the pain they caused Bobby Franks or his family. And the flood of their callous statements never seemed to stop. Nathan actually thought the press was overreacting to it all. He said he couldn't understand why the paper said it was such an atrocious murder. They had kidnapped a five-foot, 100-pound 14-year-old boy, bludgeoned him with a chisel, taped his mouth shut, stripped him, poured hydrochloric acid on his face and groin, and then stuffed his naked body into a drain pipe.

For most of America, it was hard to imagine a more atrocious murder. Nathan Leopold had also bragged that committing the murder was like a scientific experiment. He had always wanted to experience the sensation of killing another human. Richard Loeb's beliefs were equally divorced from reality. He thought he'd spend a few years in jail, be released, and come out with a new life. He'd go to work, work hard, and amount to something.

He'd have a career like any normal person, more or less. The state prosecutor was Robert Crow. At 40 years old, he was the youngest man ever appointed chief justice of the criminal court of Cook County. He was also personally familiar with Clarence Darrow's work. The previous year, Darrow had humiliated Crow on a case that had made headline. Darrow got a Republican bigwig acquitted of corruption charges against all odds. The newspaper said the result was, a consequence more of Darrow's guile than an absence of evidence.

Crow assumed Darrell would have Leopold and Loeb plead not guilty by reason of insanity. To counter that, Crow asked psychiatrists to evaluate Richard and Nathan. Illinois law followed the British legal system in determining a insanity. Individuals were considered insane if they committed an act while not knowing its nature and quality or not knowing it was wrong. But even as Crow took steps to counter an insanity plea, a question lingered. How could the killers plead insanity now? They'd already confessed. They described the crime in great detail. Well, their lawyers could claim the young men had spoken under duress and were coerced and beaten.

And the lawyers could try to prove that Crow had ignored both of their requests for attorneys. Judge John Caverley promised he would bring kidnapping and murder charges before a grand jury as soon as possible. Monday, June 2nd, 1924. The next day, Clarence Darrow was furious. His clients had been in custody for over three days and only now had been given access to legal counsel. He presented petitions for writs of habeas corpus, asking that Crowe give up the prisoners and remand them to the custody of the sheriff. Judge John Caverley agreed, and Robert Crowe was having

a rough morning in his newest battle against Clarence Darrow. A parade of witnesses appeared before the grand jury. Jacob Franks, Bobby's father. Zvene England, Leopold chauffeur who verified that Nathan's red sports car had been in the garage that entire afternoon. and Tony Minky, who had discovered Bobby's feet sticking out of the drain pipe. They unanimously linked Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb to the brutal murder of Bobby Franks. The only question seemed to be whether the cause of death was the blows to the head or asphyxiation. Four days later, after hearing from 72 witnesses, the grand jury returned indictments charging Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb on 11 counts for murder, and 16.

counts for kidnapping and ransom. Swarms of people gathered at the courthouse each day to get a glimpse of the two young men who were responsible for the grisly and unprovoked crime. Most of the spectators demanded the killers be hanged. A week after the charges were handed down, Bedlam erupted in the courthouse as several thousand people tried to storm the courtroom. They were nearly successful. The crowd managed to tear one of the heavy doors off its hinges. Had it not been for a wall of bailiffs blocking the doorway, all hell would have broken loose. After the formality of Leopold and Loeb's Not Guilty Please, Judge Kaverley set a trial date of August 4th, a little less than two months away. And the alienists were on their way.

Alienists, today known as psychiatrists, were brought in by Clarence Darrow's team to show that the boys had something intrinsically wrong with them and should not be blamed for their actions. The case was already so well known that William Randolph Hearst invited Sigmund Freud to travel to the U.S. and analyze Leopold and Loeb. Freud declined. Thirteen alienists conducted extensive examinations of Nathan and Richard. One specialist said he found insanity in both the families of Leopold and Loeb.

Another believed the key to mental health revolved around the endocrine, glands. Glendular disease present in Leopold and Loeb was blamed for the death of Bobby Franks. Another psychiatrist determined that Richard suffered from an overwhelming inferiority complex. He said the demands of college at 14 years old, combined with Richard's sexual immaturity, contributed to the young man's violent actions. The prosecutors wondered if all these fancy medical experts were just another way for the rich families to buy the freedom of their sons. Clarence Darrow shot that down.

The American Medical Association had set the fees for all the medical experts, so they were being paid fair market rate. Incidentally, Darrow made the same statement about himself. He said the Chicago Bar Association had set the compensation for himself and his staff. All the examinations were reported in the press, and Nathan was not happy with what he read. He felt the newspapers depicted him as being mentally ill. That bugged him more than killing a 14-year-old boy. One of the psychiatrists asked Nathan if he would do it again if he knew he wouldn't be caught.

With no hesitation, Nathan replied, Yes, why not? Murder in my code is not a crime. My crime was in getting caught. Richard Loeb put it a different way. When questioned if he felt like backing out of the, murder at any time, Richard said, I did, but I didn't want to be called a quitter. Then the psychiatrist questioned the young men about their fantasies.

Nathan imagined himself as a powerful slave, which sounded like an oxymoron. Richard's favorite fantasy was of himself in a jail cell, half-naked, being whipped and abused by prison guards while a crowd looked on with admiration and pity. Prosecutor Robert Crow thought all the analysis was just an attempt at distraction. Clarence Darrow was nothing if not unpredictable. At a pre-trial hearing, he shocked everyone in the courtroom by stating that both defendants would withdraw their not guilty pleas. They now pled guilty.

State's attorney Robert Crow was devastated. Illinois law said an insanity plea must be heard before a jury. Crow needed a jury to ensure Leopold and Loeb would be hanged. But Clarence Darrow knew a jury would never believe the insanity defense. By changing the plea to guilty, there would be no jury trial. The only issue up for debate was the sentence. In basic terms, it was life in prison versus the death penalty. And all Darrow had to do was convince one man, Judge John Caverley.

It was called the trial of the century. though in fairness, that label was applied to several trials over the years. And it wasn't a classic jury trial. It was basically just a long debate over the sentence that the defendants should receive. Richard and Nathan had officially confessed their guilt, so the goal of the defense was to avoid the death penalty. And there was really only one strategy to take. The blame game.

In Richard's case, a psychiatrist suggested that his governess, Emily Struthers was so demanding of Richard and pushed him so hard that it had turned him into a pathological liar. Therefore, the emotional abuse by the governess was to blame for the murder of Bobby Franks. In Nathan's case, the physical abuse of his governess was to blame. Matilda wants had seduced Nathan and maybe even raped him when he was 12 years old. The defense argued that the actions of the two young men were out of their control and shaped by others. It simply wasn't their fault. And Darrow used the wealth of the two families in his defense. He actually believed that their money hurt their case. He insisted that the public demanded the death penalty because

the two families were rich. The public wanted to punish the rich kids. If they'd been poor, there would be no outcry. Four days into the trial, the defense called Harold Holbe. a respected Chicago neuropsychiatrist to the witness stand. The defense was desperately trying to straddle the line and prove that neither young man was insane, but they both suffered from mental illness. Holbert had run a battery of tests on the two boys. He testified that Nathan had an abnormally low basal metabolism,

which signaled a disorder of the endocrine glands and the sympathetic nervous system. X-rays on Nathan's skull revealed a small gland in the brain that showed signs of calcification. The gland's function was to inhibit the libido and stimulate mental development, which meant Nathan's sex drive was out of control and he was immature. Hobart also explained that his tests showed that there were signs Nathan suffered from an abnormal thyroid gland and an undersized pituitary gland. All of this meant that Nathan Leopold suffered from glandular,

disease. So, the defense asked if Nathan had been able to commit the kidnapping and the homicide, if he had not had such mental disease. Harold Holbert said no, Nathan could not have done it. And then he said the same about Richard. Prosecutor Robert Crowe was fed up with how the defense glossed over the unspeakable murder and trivialized the crime. He sarcastically quipped, They did not commit murder. They broke a jar of jam in the pantry. That is not blood on their hands. That's jam.

Closing arguments began Tuesday, August 19th, 1924. Thomas Marshall, Assistant State's Attorney for Cook County, appeared before Judge Caverley and pleaded his case. He informed the court and the spectators that in 1922, two boys, ages 18 and 19, the exact ages of Leopold and Loeb, had no intention of killing anybody and were currently on death row.

Those boys lived in the slums of Chicago and couldn't find work. They decided to rob a market so they wouldn't starve to death. After the store manager opened the cash register, the boys were going to tie him up, grab the money, and get out of there, and that would be the end of it.

But things didn't work out that way. A police officer was sitting in the store room reading the newspaper until his shift started. His gun was on the adjacent chair. When the boys entered the storeroom, they struggled with the officer for his gun. Several shots went off, and the police officer died. Now the assistant state's attorney drove home the point.

If those boys got the death penalty for accidentally killing someone during a robbery in which they were just trying to feed themselves, what sort of justice would prevail if Leopold and Loeb did not also, so get the death penalty. Nathan and Richard had meticulously plotted a murder for months, which included alibis, rehearsals, and a ransom. How could they only receive prison sentences?

The attorney finished by declaring that the murder of Bobby Franks was void of passion and was treated more like an intellectual exercise. It was, simply, one of the most horrific crimes he'd ever heard of. Walter Backrack began the response for the defense. He pushed the mental illness angle. He said Nathan Leopold was paranoid, had delusions of grandeur, and an ardent disregard for others.

He said Richard believed he was a Superman who had no need to behave according to the law. He was addicted to hedonism and did whatever gave him pleasure. He said Richard was also schizophrenic and had displayed a progressive loss of contact with reality. They were both just sick kids. And Backrack continued.

He said the state psychiatrist had only spent three hours examining the defendants in one afternoon. The defense psychiatrists examined the boys over the course of weeks in an isolated room with the latest scientific equipment. So which of those results should the court believe? That afternoon, 2,000 spectators crowded in front of the criminal court building. It was now Clarence Darrow's turn to speak, and he spoke for the court. the next three days. Darrow stressed that the youth of Leopold and Loeb should disqualify them from the gallows. After all, in the history of Chicago, there had been 90 hangings, and only three had been hanged on a guilty plea, and none of the three were younger than 29 years old.

Furthermore, the murder had no motive or purpose. The senseless random action could only be blamed on mental illness. Their ransom note proved. it. They didn't need the money. Richard Loeb had $3,000 in his bank account, and Nathan was scheduled to go on a vacation to Europe that summer, with all expenses paid by his father. Andera went on. Since Richard's mental condition was a consequence of the hereditarian environmental forces that molded him, where could you determine responsibility? Wasn't everyone shaped by such forces? Therefore, was anyone ever responsible? If responsibility had to be assigned for that event, then blame society for the killing and refrain from punishing Nathan and Richard.

Darrow continued to ramble, even going so far as to blame World War I for the death of Bobby Franks. He believed that the killing of human beings had become so commonplace, so casual and routine, that society now had a bloodlust, as he put it. That bloodlust had trickled down to Nathan and Richard. With that, Clarence Darrow was finally finished. Now it was State's attorney Robert Crow's turn. He would have the final word. Crow opposed Darrow's claim that the money wasn't an issue. If that was true, why would they have asked for old bills in the ransom note?

Crow argued that Richard did need the money because he had a gambling problem. And that aside, Clarence Darrow was operating on a very slippery slope. If people weren't responsible for their own actions, then the world would fall apart and there could never be justice. Crow believed that Clarence Darrow wasn't calling for an end to capital punishment. He was calling for an end to all punishment. Then Robert Crow dropped his bomb show. He'd waited all this time, and now he said it. The crime had been sexually motivated.

Nathan and Richard had undressed the corpse in two stages. They hadn't removed the remainder of Bobby's clothes until after they'd pushed him into the culvert. Therefore, Crow believed that Bobby Franks had been raped by Nathan. The courtroom was stunned. Judge Cavarly said he'd need 10 days or so to decide. Not long after the trial finished, the phone rang at Judge Cavarly's residence.

He wasn't there to answer because he was attending the funeral of a friend from college. his wife Charlotte nervously picked up the phone. The trial had turned the Cavalys into magnets for attention, most of it threatening. The most popular message was that the judge better send the two unrepentant teenage murderers to death, or else John Cavarley would be the one dead. Mrs. Cavarley listened to the man's deep voice on the other end of the line. This is Captain Roberts of the police department. Your husband, the judge, was shot to death as he was entering,

the gate of Calvary's Cemetery. He's there now, come quick. Mrs. Caverley screamed. A constable had been assigned to guard the house because of the death threats, and she yelled for him to get the car. They raced toward the cemetery. As their vehicle came to a skidding halt near the cemetery gates, John Cavarly stood amongst his friends, casually conversing. He had not been shot. He had not been killed. It was all a cruel hoax. As the judge pondered their fates, the Leopold and Loeb families agonized over the outcome. But Nathan and Richard didn't seem nervous or bothered. Richard was glad the trial was over so he'd have more time to make a name for myself in the Jail Baseball League.

He also marveled at how well he was sleeping. He was getting at least eight hours a night. Meanwhile, Nathan planned to write his autobiography, which he would offer to newspaper. for serialization before publishing it as a book. The conditions in the jail, at least for Leopold and Loeb, were more than accommodating. The warden had arranged for Sunday concerts and allowed them to see any visitors they liked. One day, six players from the Chicago Cubs, including future Hall of Famer Gabby Hartnett, showed up at the warden's office.

They said they wanted to tour the jail and see the young murderers. Hartnett actually spent time in the prison yard with Nathan. The future Hall of Famer adjusted the batting stance of the young murderer and helped with his swing. There was also no shortage of reporters interviewing the boys behind bars. Chicago bookies were offering three-to-one odds against a death sentence. Nathan joked to a journalist that he'd love to bet on it, but it was illegal for the prisoners to gamble.

His brother Michael visited him and said his comments in the press were stressing out their father and to please stop. Nathan shrugged off the request. He genuinely didn't care about causing anyone grief. The spotlight was way more important. On Wednesday, September 10th, 1924, Judge Kaverley arrived at the courthouse at 8.30 a.m. This time, he wasn't taking any chances. A dozen bodyguard surrounded him. The courthouse was a mob scene.

Radio station WGN was there to broadcast the decision live from the courtroom. As all of Chicago listened, Cavalys spoke extra slowly, as if taunting the crowd. He said, In choosing imprisonment instead of death, the court is moved chiefly by the consideration of the age of the defendants, boys of 18 and 19 years. The court believes that it is within his province to decline to impose the sentence of death on persons who are not of full age.

Cavalty was also convinced there was no sexual abuse performed on the body of Bobby Franks. The verdict was now in. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were each sentenced to life in prison for the murder, plus an additional 99 years for the kidnapping. Clarence Darrow and the defense had prevailed. State's attorney Robert Crowe was now O and 2 against Darrow. After sentencing, Richard and Nathan joked and chatted with journalists as if they were at a party. There was still no remorse, regret, or sympathy. They gleefully ordered in steaks smothered in onions and chocolate Eclayers.

Then it was off to Joliet Prison for the remainder of time. Next time on Infamous America, Leopold and Loeb begin their new lives in prison. And those lives take very different turns. One ends in a pool of blood in the prison shower. The other ends on the island of Puerto Rico. Here the conclusion of the Leopold and Loeb story next week on Infamous America. And if you're a member of our Black Barrel Plus program, you don't have to worry about next week. Members receive access to each new season in full every episode, one week before the season begins for the general public.

And members receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or the link in the show notes. This season was researched and written by Brian Frazier. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. find us at our website blackbarrelmedia.com or our social media channels. We're blackbarrel media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube.

Just search for Infamous America Podcast. Thanks for listening.