Clarence Darrow

1857–1938 · American defense lawyer, agnostic, and opponent of capital punishment

Clarence Darrow was the most famous defense attorney in America, remembered for the Leopold and Loeb case, the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial, and his defense of Ossian Sweet. He built a career on the argument that no one is purely innocent — that the impulses society punishes are present in everybody — which is exactly the argument the obituary line was written to serve. He published The Story of My Life in 1932, six years before his death.

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“I Have Never Killed Any One, But I Have Read Some Obituary Notices with Great Satisfaction”

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