System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Clarence Darrow
1857 - 1938
Criminal defense lawyer Clarence Darrow, who became famous during the Scopes 'monkey' trial in 1925, died March 13, 1938. He was 80.
Darrow was born April 18, 1857 in Farmdale, Ohio. An agnostic, Darrow's religious views were influenced at an early age when his father lost his faith while attending a seminary.
Darrow received his law degree from the University of Michigan and began practicing law in Ohio in 1878. After an uneventful decade of being a small-town attorney, Darrow moved to Chicago in 1887 where he began practicing labor law.
One of his most publicized cases involved his defense of socialist leader Eugene Debs in 1894. Debs was leading a strike of workers against the Pullman Sleeping Car Company. Darrow argued that an injunction preventing Debs involvement was unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court upheld the ruling.
A case in 1911 involving two brothers accused of blowing up the Los Angeles Times Building almost resulted in Darrow's disbarment. The defendants changed their innocent pleas to guilty and Darrow was indicted for misconduct. He was acquitted.
Darrow's most famous cases came late in his life. His 1924 defense of Leopold and Loeb, two Chicago boys who killed a youngster for thrills, brought national attention. Darrow urged his clients to plead guilty, and convinced a jury to sentence the two to life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. He was successful.
The other case, which enhanced Darrow's legal fame, was the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. Scopes, a teacher, had been indicted for violating Tennessee law by teaching evolution in the classroom.
The famous perennial presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, came to prosecute the case. Darrow was the defense lawyer for Scopes.
And while Darrow lost the case, his defense of Scopes right to teach evolution called into question religious fundamentalism, which had brought about Scopes indictment.
Darrow's intense cross-examination of Bryan gave agnostics a national forum, something they had never had before.
Darrow was later appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to chair a commission to review the activities of the National Recovery Administration.
Darrow died in Chicago on March 13, 1938.
