…three-time Democratic presidential candidate, and Clarence Darrow (1857–1938), a defense counsel in notable criminal trials, served as the assistant prosecuting attorney and the lead defense attorney, respectively ( see Scopes Trial).
(AP Photo, reprinted with permission from The Associated Press.) Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) was one of America’s most famous and controversial defense attorneys, known for his role in the Scopes monkey trial of 1925 and other major cases of his day.
Famous lawyer Clarence Darrow, opposed to the death penalty, lost only one client to execution. Clarence Darrow. Clarence Darrow was an attorney who opposed the death penalty when it was still the law across America, defending criminals in the most interesting, complicated, and significant cases of the time.
Alternative Title: Clarence Seward Darrow. Clarence Darrow, in full Clarence Seward Darrow, (born April 18, 1857, near Kinsman, Ohio, U.S.—died March 13, 1938, Chicago, Illinois), lawyer whose work as defense counsel in many dramatic criminal trials earned him a place in American legal history.
He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. Farmdale, Ohio, U.S. Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Called a "sophisticated country lawyer", Darrow's wit and eloquence made him one of the most prominent attorneys and civil libertarians in the nation.
labour and criminal lawyerAlthough Debs and his associates were convicted and the decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Darrow established a national reputation as a labour and criminal lawyer.
- An American lawyer, a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a prominent advocate for Georgist (economic value derived from land (including natural resources and natural opportunities) should belong equally to all members of society).
Clarence Darrow, in full Clarence Seward Darrow, (born April 18, 1857, near Kinsman, Ohio, U.S.—died March 13, 1938, Chicago, Illinois), lawyer whose work as defense counsel in many dramatic criminal trials earned him a place in American legal history. He was also well known as a public speaker, debater, and miscellaneous writer.
Through his friendship with Judge John Peter Altgeld, afterward governor of Illinois, Darrow was appointed Chicago city corporation counsel in 1890, and then he became general attorney for the Chicago and North Western Railway.
William Jennings Bryan (lower left, with fan) and Clarence Darrow (centre right, arms folded) in a Dayton, Tennessee, courtroom during the Scopes Trial, July 1925.
After World War I, Darrow defended several war protesters charged with violating state sedition laws. He saved (1924) Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold from a death sentence (though not from imprisonment) for the murder of 14-year-old Robert Franks in Chicago.
He had been pressured to implicate the labor leaders by the prosecutors in the case. Darrow gave a summation which amounted to a profound defense of the labor movement. Haywood and the others were acquitted, and Darrow's performance cemented his position as a defender of the common man against money interests.
Beginning in the mid-1890s , Darrow began taking on cases that appealed to his sense of justice. He was generally successful, for what he lacked in education and prestige he made up with his ability to speak plainly but dramatically in front of juries and judges.
Besides his busy legal practice, Darrow published a number of books, including Crime: Its Cause and Treatment, published in 1922, dealing with Darrow's belief that crime was caused by factors impacting a person's life. He also wrote an autobiography published in 1932.
The appeal for mercy posed by Darrow eventually succeeded. After deliberating for ten days, the judge sentenced Leopold and Loeb to sentences of life plus 99 years. (Loeb was killed in prison by another inmate in 1934. Leopold was eventually paroled in 1958 and died in Puerto Rico in 1971.)
The legal result of the trial was actually a loss for Darrow’s client. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. However, to many observers, including H.L. Mencken, Darrow was considered to have won a victory in the sense of having shown to the nation at large the ludicrous nature of fundamentalism.
But when Darrow came into the case, the proceedings became nationally known, and the case was dubbed "The Monkey Trial" in the sensationalist press. A split in American society in the 1920s, between religious conservatives and progressives advocating science, became the focus of the courtroom drama.
Early Life. Clarence Darrow was born April 18, 1857, in Farmdale, Ohio. After attending public schools in Ohio, young Darrow worked as a farm hand and decided the labor of the farm was not for him. He studied for a year Allegheny College in Pennsylvania before attending the University of Michigan law school for a year.
Though best known for his role in the Scopes monkey trial, Darrow argued before the Supreme Court that the government's conspiracy and treason laws were unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment. (AP Photo, reprinted with permission from The Associated Press.) Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) was one of America’s most famous ...
In Darrow’s words, conspiracy was “the modern and ancient drag-net for compassing the imprisonment and death of men whom the ruling class does not like” (1934: 144). Lawyer Clarence Darrow is seen with his wife at his home in Chicago, Ill., on April 18, 1936, one day before his 79th birthday. (AP Photo, used with permission from The Associated ...
Darrow appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, where he argued that Debs and the others had been convicted of doing and advocating what is lawful — organizing support for a union.
Darrow believed that such restrictions were unconstitutional. Of all the threats to freedoms of speech, of the press, and to gather and to petition the government, the most sinister, Darrow thought, was the increasing use of conspiracy laws to combat labor unrest and other forms of dissent.
Once again, the Court disagreed with Darrow, and it upheld Turner’s deportation order. In 1925 Darrow led the defense counsel employed by the American Civil Liberties Union in the Scopes monkey tria l in Dayton, Tennessee.
Clarence Darrow, left, and William Jennings Bryan speak with each other at the "monkey trial" in Dayton, Tenn. in 1925. Darrow was one of three lawyers sent to Dayton by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
During the trial, Darrow subjected William Jennings Bryan, a member of the prosecution, to a withering cross-examination that exposed difficulties with Bryan’s views. Although First Amendment issues were not raised at the time, the Scopes trial has since become a landmark legal symbol.
Clarence Darrow was a trial attorney made famous for his defense of a Tennessee educator accused of breaking a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools. (Bettmann / Corbis)
Darrow was a trial attorney made famous for his defense of a Tennessee educator accused of breaking a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools. (Bettmann / Corbis) In that trial, there was a whisper that Darrow, or someone working for the defense, tried to bribe potential witnesses.
And after he defended two brothers accused of firebombing the Los Angeles Times in 1911, Darrow himself was tried—twice—on charges that he’d bribed jurors in that trial. He was acquitted the first time, but the second case ended with the jury hung 8-4 for convicting him.
And Darrow did need money, because, for one thing, he was a womanizer. He was supporting two households—his first wife and their son, and then his second wife. It also cost money to run around chasing other women. Another problem is that he was an awful investor.
The two major cases of his career came when he was in his 60s—the Leopold and Loeb case and the monkey trial. Also his defense in the Sweet trial, which is the key in deciding whether you like him or not. After the monkey trial he was without a doubt the most famous trial lawyer in America.
So their rivalry began to simmer and fester, and when Darrow had a chance to ambush Bryan in the courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 , he took full advantage of it. In Darrow’s day there was open warfare between labor and capital.
It was extraordinarily dangerous because he was using a plea for a client as a soapbox. He made a very political speech, talking in almost socialistic terms about the rights of the working class, and there was a danger that the jury would react against that—as one of his juries later did in Los Angeles.