Created by Anna Marie Thatcher, J.D. and Graham Thatcher, Ph.D.

Presented by Periaktos Productions the dramatic difference in CLE

Sponsored by Macaronis Institute for Trial and Appellate Advocacy and

Advanced Legal Studies/Center for CLE & Academic Conferences

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009

Location: Suffolk University Law School, 120 Tremont St., Boston, MA
Time: 09:00 AM - 12:15 PM

The Loeb and Leopold Case
The first scene explores the Loeb and Leopold case, a crime that shocked the nation. Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold were sons from two of the wealthiest families in Chicago. They confessed to murdering young Bobby Franks in what became known in 1925 as a “thrill killing”. The two young killers, both brilliant intellectuals, described a heinous crime with no show of emotion or remorse. Public opinion demanded the death penalty. Clarence Darrow took up the fight to save them from certain hanging. In a remarkable extemporaneous summation to the judge, Darrow assaulted the vengeful mentality that supports capital punishment.

The Sweet Case
The second scene focuses on the case of Henry Sweet, in which Clarence Darrow wrestles with notions of freedom, equality and justice in a society where the law says one thing and human behavior says another. In 1926 an African-American doctor and his family moved into an all white neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. A mob of whites tossed stones at the house and screamed racial epithets at the family. Someone opened fire and a white man was killed. Eleven members of the Ossian Sweet family were arrested for murder. All were tried together, resulting in a hung jury. Five months later, Henry Sweet, Dr. Sweet’s younger brother, was tried alone for the crime. Clarence Darrow felt the issue in the case was one of pure racial hatred and racism.

The McNamara Case
In 1910 the battle between labor and capital in America was open warfare. Riots, bombings, and property destruction were rampant. The third scene of the play explores Darrow’s last involvement with the union cause and the early American labor movement. The case involved one of the most heinous bombings, that of the Los Angeles Times Building, in which twenty-five people were killed and many others were seriously injured. J.J. and Jimmy McNamara were charged with the crime. The union bosses, adamantly declaring the McNamara Brothers’ innocence, recruited Clarence Darrow as chief counsel for their defense. Learning of their guilt placed Darrow in a personal moral quandary. Ultimately his quest for justice enraged both sides and brought him to the brink of personal despair and destruction. This case deals with the issue of duty to the client. It publicized the clash between labor and management.

The Scopes Case
The final scene of the play explores the most widely known of all of Clarence Darrow’s courtroom battles . . . the case dubbed by the press as “The Scopes Monkey Trial”. A statute in Tennessee made it illegal to teach any theories of creation contrary to the Biblical book of Genesis. A young high school teacher by the name of John Scopes was teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, decided to challenge the law. Clarence Darrow volunteered his legal services to argue for freedom from religious suppression in the classroom. On the opposing side was William Jennings Bryan, the “Great Commoner” and politician who had made a secondary career of promoting religious fundamentalism. His goal was to “root out heresy” in the classroom and firmly establish Biblical creational teachings as fact. Darrow’s courtroom coup comes when Bryan’s fundamentalism collapses under close questioning about his literal interpretation of the Bible.