Psychiatric Examinations
Leopold and Loeb were given urine tests by their doctors.
Several newspapers hinted that the tests were failing to prove Leopold and Loeb were insane, and the defense wasn’t sure of its next course of action. As usual, papers were framing Leopold as the worse killer: “Leopold, it’s rumored, wants to ditch the psychiatrists and direct his own defense. Loeb, more tractable and of a decidedly more gentle spirit than Leopold, Jr., is obeying the orders of defense council to the letter.”
Described By Friends
Leopold’s former law professor Ernest Puttkammer was found by reporters on his summer vacation in Mackinac Island, Michigan. He gave a long interview in which he talked both about a conversation he and Leopold had about the Franks murder (which he would later testify about) and what Leopold had been like as a student:
“I found him an exceptionally brilliant student. He had a wonderful mind for detail and could argue technicalities with considerable ability. But I never suspected that he had a criminal twist in his mind.
“I remember one class discussion in particular, when it was being shown how extremely heavy penalties are liable to influence criminals to commit greater crimes than if the penalty were lighter. I cited the old English law providing for death for ex-soldiers caught begging. I explained that the veteran would be tempted to kill those from whom he sought charity.
“Young Leopold was one of the first students to agree with me. He even made a short talk in favor of less severe penalties as a measure which would tend to reduce crime and murder in particular.”
“In addition to his exceptional mentality, Leopold was a model student, in that he was never late or absent in classes, to the best of my recollection. He was one of those students who do their work so well and thoroughly that the instructor pays little or no attention to an occasional absence.”
“He was one of the very few in the class who were continually raising their hands and asking questions as to how a slayer’s state of mind would affect the penalty. For instance, he would ask if the penalty would be greater if malice aforethought were proved, or whether criminal intent existed.
“Another one of his favorite suppositions was an unbalanced mind on the part of the imaginary defendant. More than once would he question certain penalties in the event that the criminal could be proved insane or mentally unbalanced.”
Salmon Levinson, father of John Levinson, who had almost been a victim of Leopold and Loeb, wrote to a friend on this day:
“The escape of our boy was indeed miraculous, as the confession shows, and as the facts we have checked up corroborate. We have been in a kind of nightmare, first, because the Loeb boy’s father is an intimate friend of mine and, secondly, because of the feeling that we might have been in a life-long tragedy and calamity ourselves.
The crime itself has paralyzed Chicago as, without the background of fate and the evolutionary processes which undoubtedly existed, the attempt at unravelling the thing is baffling. Fortunately, we are leaving on June 30th for our summer home in Maine and there we can more easily throw off the incubus.”
Sources
- Chicago Daily Journal, June 18, 1924
- Northwestern University, Harold Hulbert Papers
- University of Chicago, Salmon Levinson Papers
The Lives and Legends of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold 