Tag Archives: insanity plea in Leopold and Loeb trial

Insanity Defense Becomes More Common

Leopold and Loeb Enter Joliet Prison Following Their Convictions

Though President Garfield’s assassin, Guiteau, did not save his life based on an insanity defense, the plea became more common.

In 1924, Dr. William A. White, superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital for the Insane, testified in another sensational insanity-plea trial: that of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb for the kidnapping and murder of a fourteen-year-old boy named Robert Franks. Continue reading