‘Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned’: new biography of an indefatigable champion of the underdog

John A. Farrell's 'Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned' is a new biography of the legendary American defense attorney who defended union organizers, despised minorities and those accused of sensational crimes

Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned'

by John A. Farrell

Random House, 561 pp., $32.50

America has long adored winning trial lawyers, and none more than Clarence Darrow. Born in 1857, he resigned from a promising career as a corporate lawyer to represent union organizers, despised minorities and those accused of sensational crimes. And he was devastatingly effective, winning most of his nearly 2,000 trials almost regardless of the circumstances, the defendants or the actual evidence.

In "Clarence Darrow: Attorney For The Damned," John A. Farrell adds to a growing body of Darrow biographies. Farrell, a Boston Globe editor, draws from previously unpublished correspondence to give fresh insight into Darrow's remarkable career.

Darrow cared little about consistency, political agendas or larger issues. For Darrow, mercy (and a quick acquittal) was the only thing that mattered. It is, of course, a handy attitude for a criminal defense lawyer.

He represented Thomas Kidd, an organizer put on trial in Wisconsin for leading a conspiracy to destroy the Paine Lumber Company by helping to organize a strike of its employees. Those workers earned 45 cents a day working under guard in locked facilities. The case was watched nationally as an early test of the right to organize - Darrow won and became labor's leading trial lawyer. He also won acquittal for Big Bill Haywood, the secretary for the mine workers, accused of murdering the Governor of Idaho. He represented Eugene Debs, the Socialist, and hundreds of other social outcasts.

Darrow was no businessman and would have fared poorly in today's big-business orientation of most law firms. He worked for free in over a third of his cases. But the common theme of most of his cases was the defense of individual liberty against the gathering force of industrialization and government intrusion.

In his most famous case, Darrow defended John Scopes, who was charged with teaching evolution in defiance of a Tennessee state law prohibiting such a science-based approach to education. Darrow saw the case as protecting education from "religious fanaticism." His dramatic confrontation with William Jennings Bryan, who represented the State of Tennessee, was spellbinding and years later won Spencer Tracy an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Darrow in a movie about the trial, "Inherit the Wind."

Darrow took pains to polish his own image. He was remarkably successful at it. Farrell's book all but gushes over in admiration for the great orator, but Darrow was hardly flawless, and would have fared poorly in today's media-saturated world. He was unfaithful to a remarkable degree, ultimately divorcing his wife and remarrying, all the while sleeping with innumerable women across the country.

He was indicted and stood trial twice for attempting to bribe a jury, ultimately resulting in a hung jury and an unshakable taint of guilt he could never shake. He was long-winded in an era when long speeches were the norm. He often took several days to pick a jury, and even longer to present his closing argument. In most modern trials, jury selection consumes a morning and trial judges frequently limit closing argument to an hour or two. Darrow could barely have introduced himself in that time. A modern jury would likely fall asleep before he got to the point.

Farrell provides a thoughtful overview of Darrow, his life and his many accomplishments. It's no small task with a subject so large and encrusted with such idol worship. But only when Darrow's quite human failings are exposed can history appreciate his enormous gift to the American legal tradition.

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