This thesis situates the famous Leopold and Loeb case within the context of social discourse about the criminal. I will argue that this case played an important role in mediating social attitudes towards criminality at two moments in American history: first, in the 1920s, when defense attorney Clarence Darrow used the Leopold and Loeb trial to challenge traditional assumptions about innate criminality and the existence of a criminal type; and later, in the post World War Two epoch, when concern with various forms of "deviant" behaviour intensified. This analysis of one particular criminal case and its manifold repercussions might also prove useful for opening similar inquiries into other causes celebres.

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