Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned

Name: Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned
Author: John A. Farrell
ISBN: 9781921942075

John A. Farrell

award won

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Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned

John A. Farrell

award won

score

Drawing on untapped archives and full of fresh revelations, here is the definitive biography of America's legendary defence attorney and progressive hero. Clarence Darrow is the lawyer every law student dreams of being: on the side of right, loved by many women, played by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind. His days-long closing arguments delivered without notes won miraculous reprieves for men doomed to hang. Darrow left a promising career as a railroad lawyer during the tumultuous Gilded Age in order to champion poor workers, blacks, and social and political outcasts against big business, Jim Crow, and corrupt officials. He became famous defending union leader Eugene Debs in the landmark Pullman Strike case and went from one headline case to the next — until he was nearly crushed by an indictment for bribing a jury. He redeemed himself in Dayton, Tennessee, defending schoolteacher John Scopes in the 'Monkey Trial', cementing his place in history. Now, John Farrell draws on previously unpublished correspondence and memoirs to offer a candid account of Darrow's divorce, affairs, and disastrous finances; new details of his feud with his law partner, the famous poet Edgar Lee Masters; a shocking disclosure about one of his most controversial cases; and explosive revelations of shady tactics he used in his own trial for bribery. Clarence Darrow is a sweeping, surprising portrait of a legendary legal mind.

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