Read the passage. In 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were convicted of killing a fourteen-year-old neighbor boy. Leopold and Loeb were in their late teens, came from wealthy families, and attended college. They wanted to commit the “perfect crime.” Attorney Clarence Darrow, a lifetime opponent of the death penalty, was their defense attorney.

excerpt from Clarence Darrow’s closing argument in Illinois v. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, August 22–25, 1924

…I well remember that I have been a child. And while youth has its advantages, it has its grievous troubles. There is an old prayer, "Let us grow old in years, but retain the heart of a child"—the heart of a child with its strong emotion, with its abundant life, with its disregard of consequences, with its living in the moment and for the moment and for the moment alone, with its lack of responsibility, with its freedom from care.

…What do we know about childhood? The brain of the child is the home of dreams, of castles, of visions, of illusions and of delusions. In fact, there could be no childhood without delusions, for delusions are always more alluring than the fact. Delusions, dreams and hallucinations are a part of the warp and woof of childhood.…