Clarence Darrow, 1857-1938, was a celebrated civil rights hero, an American lawyer, and Civil Rights activist, who defendedI had never heard about Clarence Darrow and possible jury tampering. Here is an article about it. https://t.co/27yXB3AoBx https://t.co/VcFIgbsC0Q
— Eric Hunley (@hunleyeric) December 13, 2023
Inherit the Wind was a 1955 short drama, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, about the 1925 Scopes Trial and made into the 1960 film version, starring Spencer Tracy and Frederic March. Tracy plays the character, Henry Drummond, who was patterned after Clarence Darrow. In the famous trial of John T. Scopes at Dayton, Tennessee (July 10–21, 1925), Darrow defended a high-school teacher who had broken a state law by presenting the Darwinian theory of evolution.
The 1920 Scopes Trial was Darrow's most famous legal battle, but maybe not. In the 1910, LA Times Building Bombing, Darrow defended the bombers. And in the process
Briefly on Darrow,
Darrow attended law school for only one year before being admitted to the Ohio bar in 1878. He moved to Chicago in 1887 and immediately took part in attempts to free the anarchists charged with murder in the Haymarket Riot (May 4, 1886). Through his friendship with Judge John Peter Altgeld, afterward governor of Illinois, Darrow was appointed Chicago city corporation counsel in 1890, and then he became general attorney for the Chicago and North Western Railway. He left the North Western to defend Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, and other union leaders arrested on a federal charge of contempt of court arising from the Pullman Strike (May–July 1894). Although Debs and his associates were convicted and the decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Darrow established a national reputation as a labour and criminal lawyer. In arbitration hearings during the Pennsylvania anthracite coal strike (1902–03), Darrow represented the striking miners and in cross-examination illumined not only the arduous working conditions in the mines but also the degree to which child labour was used. Subsequently (1907), he secured the acquittal of the labour leader William D. (“Big Bill”) Haywood for the assassination of former governor Frank R. Steunenberg of Idaho. He abandoned labour litigation after the McNamara brothers, two labour leaders whom he defended against charges of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building, unexpectedly switched their plea to guilty during the course of their trial (1911).
He had defended every Leftist cause of the early 20th century. But my guess is that nobody knew about his jury tampering in the LA Times Building bombing, the deadliest crime in California history that killed 21 and injured 100. The bombers were Ortie McManigal and J.B. McNamara.
Ortie said that he had not participated in the Times bombing, but that J.B. had told him all about it, and that it was done by J.B. and two others, Matthew Schmidt and David Caplan (Schmidt and Caplan evaded arrest until 1915). McManigal also said that others involved included Ryan, J.J., Hockin and other IW leade
