Both men were then indicted for the South Braintree murders. Judge Thayer requested and received the case. Famous labor lawyer Fred Moore came to Dedham to defend Sacco & Vanzetti. Moore removed every businessman and Italian from the jury. The prosecution relied heavily upon the political beliefs of the two men. In closings, the prosecution emphasized that the men were armed during their arrest and lied during questioning, but never accounted for the missing stolen money. After five hours of deliberations, the jury found both men guilty on July 14, 1921.
The Tennessee state legislature passed the Butler Act in 1925 that banned any public teaching of the theory of evolution. The American Civil Liberties Union promised to defend any teacher brought up on charges for violating the Butler Act. George Rappleyea, a local businessman and evolutionist, began to create a plan to bring the impending case to the national level. John Scopes was chosen as the teacher to be arrested for violating the law. He was a football coach and biology teacher at Dayton High School. The textbook he used was a pro-evolutionary book, though it had several modifications from the Darwinian theory. The case brought national attention. William Jennings Bryan was strongly against the theory of evolution. Clarence Darrow, considered by many to be an atheist, was the most famous trial lawyer in America. He offered his services to defend Scopes.
The trial began on July 10, 1925. Judge John T. Raulston oversaw the case. The courtroom was filled with reporters, microphones, and film cameras. All but one of the jurors were church members, and most of them were uneducated farmers. The prosecution’s case was brief. The defense’s case was built around expert testimony on evolutionary theory, but the jury was not present during the defense’s case. Darrow then called Bryan to the stand to ask his view on evolution. This lasted for two hours before Raulston stopped the interrogation; the jury never heard a word of the testimony. Scopes was found guilty, and Raulston fined him the bare minimum of $100 dollars. This was a violation of state law that required the jury to decide the amount. The Butler Act remained on the books for another 40 years, and was finally repealed in 1967.
In 1924, two University of Chicago students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, kidnapped and murdered Robert Franks. Franks was a fourteen-year-old neighbor of both men. The two confessed to the crime, saying that they had done it to try to commit the perfect crime. The case gained national fame due to the brutality of the murders. The defendants showed no remorse; in fact the boys appeared to enjoy the publicity their capture and arraignment evoked. The Loeb family asked for the services of Clarence Darrow, a famous defense attorney. Darrow decided to use the case to denounce the nature of capital punishment.
Nathan Leopold Jr. was the son of a wealthy retired box manufacturer. Richard Loeb’s father was a retired vice president of Sears & Roebuck and a multimillionaire. Both youth were highly intelligent. Leopold, 19, was the youngest to graduate from the University of Chicago and was a noted ornithologist. Loeb, 18, was the youngest to graduate from the University of Michigan. The defendants both came from Jewish families and shared a homosexual relationship. Darrow decided to plead both men guilty to the crime of murder. Though he did believe both men were disturbed, they were not insane by legal standards. Darrow realized the pressure that would be placed on the jury to execute the men. He wanted their fate to be decided by a judge.
The defense sought to bring before the court, as mitigating circumstances, the boys’ social maladjustment and mental illness. Leopold’s parents had sent him to an all-female school as a child, in a misguided attempt to overcome his shyness around girls. This had the opposite effect. Loeb, like Leopold, was a precocious but emotionally unstable youth. The victim, Bobby Franks, was more or less chosen at random. Their idea was to kidnap the child of a wealthy family and demand a ransom. The money was to be thrown off a moving train at a designated point. The boys reluctantly concluded that the only way to avoid detection was to kill their victim, so he could provide no clues to the authorities.
Darrow’s closing statement spanned three days. Darrow’s speech made a tremendous public impression. Judge Caverly took two weeks to prepare his decision. He was finally ready on September 10, 1924. In front of a packed courtroom he announced that he had decided against execution and sentenced the defendants instead to life imprisonment.
