Donald McRae, The Last Trials of Clarence Darrow

This is a "novelization" using facts to retell the three LAST TRIALS OF CLARENCE DARROW. In 1911 Mr. Darrow defended the McNamara brothers for firebombing the Los Angeles Times building; the trial ended in a plea bargain for the union activists with their famous lawyer barred from practicing in California due to accusations he rigged the jury. His reputation was shot as he fell off the pedestal of greatness and he barley could practice law. He considered suicide.

Over ten years later, the sexagenarian Darrow decides to go back into the courtroom handling three "trials of the century cases" that rehabilitated his reputation; besides the media frenzy Hollywood helped as all three trials were made into movies. He defended the affluent brilliant Chicago teens Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb for the cold blooded murder of John Scopes to prove they could get away with a killing. Mr. Darrow took on the Scopes Monkey Trial defending a teacher in Tennessee. Finally he also defended black Dr. Ossian Sweet accused of murder when he fired on an all white mob attacking his home in Detroit. Whether Darrow was an angel or the demon, Donald McRae paints a terrific portrait of the great trail lawyer obtaining redemption long after his career was supposedly dead.

Harriet Klausner