Evening star., 1924-09-08
BOY SLAyERS' FATE
FIXED BY CAVERLY
IN SEALED VERDICT
Judge Decides Fate of Leo
poId and Loeb After At
tending Church Service.
LAST SUNDAY IN OLD
CELLS QUIET FOR BOYS
"Dickie" Blames Girls Who
Thought Him Deviish for
His Predicament.
BY the Associated Press.


CHICAGO. September S.-The fate of
Nathan F. Leopold, jr., and Richard
Loeb, scions of old Chicago millionaire
families, who kidnapped and murdered
Robert Franks last May 21, has been
sealed.
Judge John R. Caverly has completed
the decision he will render Wednesday
as the last act of his connection with
the criminal courts of Cook County.
Upon it rests whether the youths shall
die upon the gallows or grow into man.
hood in the Illinois State Penitentiary,
to which counsel pleaded that they be
sent for life.
Three sheets of ruled manila paper,
containing approximately 1000 words,
is the decision of Judge Caverly, writ
ten yesterday after, under escort of a
police guard, he had attended church.
Review of Case Terse.
A short, terse review of the case, the
record of which reached into the thou
sands of pages, and his decision, with
the official form to be added as he pro-
nounceS sentence, was the result of the
judges labor. He has stated that after
his responsibility in the case has become
a matter of record he will fight for at
least three judges to sit in capital cases
where jury trial has been waived
through a plea of guilty.
Using an ordinary lead pencil and a
few sheets of paper, Judge Caverly sat
at the desk in his library and wrote
out the document which will go down,
according to legal men, as one of the
most important decisions of modern
criminal jurisprudence.
Today the rough draft will be turned
over to a stenographer, sworn to
secrecy, to be typewriter.
The world will know what the tired
little man wrote soon after $50
O'Clock, central daylight saving time
Wednesday morning.
To Require Half Hour.
At that minute in a courtroom de-
void of visitors and with only the
defendants, guards, attorneys, rela-
tives of the defendants and of their
14-year-old victim. and reporters
present, Judge Caverly will mount
the bench. pronounce sentence, listen
to what pleas the attorneys may Of
fer and adjourn court. 1t is planned
that the entire procedure shall re-
Quire about 80 minutes.
After that, the jurist, retiring to
the divorce court from the criminal
branch, will take his first vacation in
three years.
1t had been Judge Caver1y's inten-
tion to retire to some far-removed
spot to review the Franks case and
write his decision, but he explained,
the nervous condition of his wife pre-
vented. Mrs. Caverly was unnerved
several days ago when a crank tele-
phoned to- her that the Judge had
been shot in a cemetery where he
was attending the burial of a cousin.
In the Cook County Jail, Loeb and
Leopold spent Sunday listening to an
entertainment by several profession
spend in their old cells. BY next
Sunday they will be either in death
cells awaiting execution or in de-
tention cells awaiting removal to the
Joliet penitentiary.
Loeb Blames Girls.
Girl friends, who tried to reform
him, making him feel so devilish
and mysterious instead of stupid"
was ascribed as the reason for his
downfall by Loeb, it developed yes
terday when a conversation he had
held with a girl schoolmate was
made public.
The girl friend, who called at the
county jail to see Loeb recently, re-
called today that she had blurted to
the young college student: YOU'RE
just plain stupid-Td never have be-
lieved it of you.
His eyes fell and the most shamed
expression crossed his face-you
know, being stupid is the only crime
in Dickie's lexicon" she said.
If the girls, who tried to reform
me had made me feel as stupid as
you do, might not be here await
ing to learn whether I'm to be hang
ed or shut away for life. The others
made me feel so devilish and mysteri-