Clarence Darrow in the United States
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), American lawyer, best known for his defense (1925) of John Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher charged with teaching the theory of evolution. The play and movie Inherit the Wind were based on this famous trial.
Clarence Seward Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in 1878; from 1888 until his retirement in 1927, he practiced law in Chicago, acting as defense counsel in some of the most widely publicized cases of his time. His defense of the American labor organizer Eugene V. Debs in the American Railway Union case (1894) first brought him to national attention. Although criminal cases remained one of his chief sources of income, he participated in various cases involving labor disputes or social issues, championing the cause of the underprivileged. Among the famous trials in which he served as counsel for the defense were the trial of two brothers charged with dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building and the trial of college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, charged with the motiveless killing of schoolboy Bobby Franks. Darrow opposed capital punishment, and no client he defended was sentenced to death. After retirement, he devoted himself to lecturing and writing. His works include Crime, Its Cause and Treatment (1925) and The Story of My Life (1932). (1)
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