Read the passage.
In 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were convicted of killing a fourteen-year-old neighbor boy. Leopold and Loeb were in their late teens, came from wealthy families, and attended college. They wanted to commit the “perfect crime.” Attorney Clarence Darrow, a lifetime opponent of the death penalty, was their defense attorney.
excerpt from Clarence Darrow’s closing argument in Illinois v. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, August 22–25, 1924
…They wanted a complete crime. There had been growing in this brain, dwarfed and twisted as every act in this case shows it was dwarfed and twisted, there had been growing this scheme, not due to any wickedness of Dickie Loeb, for he is a child. It grew as he grew; it grew from those around him; it grew from the lack of the proper training until it possessed him. He believed he could beat the police. He believed he could plan the perfect crime. He had thought of it and talked of it for years. Had talked of it as a child; had worked at it as a child, and this sorry act of his, utterly irrational and motiveless, a plan to commit a perfect crime which must contain kidnapping and there must be ransom, or else it could not be perfect, and they must get the money.
Question
Based on this excerpt, what is the speaker's viewpoint on the person who committed the crime?
Responses
He has been misunderstood.
He is mentally ill.
He is a good person underneath.
He is brilliant but evil.