If we fail in this defense it will not be for lack of money. It will be on account of money. Money has been the most serious handicap that we have met. There are times when poverty is fortunate.
I insist, your Honor, that had this been the case of two boys of these defendants' age, unconnected with families supposed to have great wealth, there is not a State's Attorney in Illinois who would not have consented at once to a plea of guilty and a punishment in the penitentiary for life. Not one.
No lawyer could have justified any other attitude. No prosecution could have justified it.
We could have come into this court without evidence, without argument, and this court would have given to us what every judge in the City of Chicago has given to every boy in the City of Chicago since the first capital case was tried. We would have had no contest.
We are here with the lives of two boys imperiled, with the public aroused. For what?
Because, unfortunately, the parents have money. Nothing else.