Leopold and Loeb: An Analysis

The famous Leopold and Loeb case consisted of two wealthy, promising young white boys who committed murder on 14-year-old Robert Franks.

Background

Leopold and Loeb both come from very prestigious backgrounds: The Leobs owned an estate (now called Castle Farms) while the Leopolds were a wealthy German Jewish family. Leopold was so intelligent he, at the age of 19 (time of the murder), he already completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago (and aspiring and spoke five of the fifteen languages he was speaking fluently. Loeb skipped several grades and graduated from the University of Michigan at the age of 17 (youngest graduate at the school). Overall, we can definitely see that Leopold and Loeb, not even mentioning that they are white during a time like the 1930s, were not your average kids---but were special and came from pretty rich and high-statued families.

Why did Leopold and Loeb, for an act of planned violence, received life instead of death?

We can see from the lives of Leopold and Loeb that although they DID have an attraction to petty crime, such as theft and vandalism, their criminal actions did not go as far as to HURT another human being, as it obviously has been shown by Bigger with his humiliating attack on Gus, attack, and rape of two other women, killing of Bessie, and finally: The killing of Mary Dalton. It is obvious that he has extreme violent tendencies and was of no benefit to his community or society unlike the killers of Robert Franks, who were prestigious and intelligent students who posed a benefit to society (https://historybecauseitshere.weebly.com/the-murderer-and-the-museum-curator---nathan-leopold-and-kirtlands-warbler.html--Nathan Leopold's research on the Kirtland's Warbler, an endangered songbird).

What is the proof that Leopold and Loeb are good-will people who committed one terrible mistake (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/mistake: A mistake is something or part of something that is incorrect or not right)? Both made good actions in prison, including:

• Creating a new high school and junior college curriculum in the prison (Stateville Penitentiary).
• Leopold reorganized the prison library, taught the students in the school system and worked (volunteer) at the prison hospital

Loeb wasn't able to live out to parole like his friend Leopold did, as Loeb died from an attack by another inmate in prison. Leopold was released on parole in 1958, where he attempted to set up a foundation dedicated to helping troubled youth (sadly, this was not launched as this interfered with the terms of his parole). He eventually moved to Peutro Rico and lived a relatively productive life, including becoming a medical technician in a hospital.