Mitigation. Mitigation. I have heard so many big words, and foreign words in this case that I sometimes thought that probably we are letting error creep into the record. So many strange, foreign words have ben used here; and the Constitution provides that the trial must be conducted in the English language. I don't know; maybe I have got aggravation and mitigation mixed up.
It is a mitigating circumstance, if Your Honor please, that when they were outlining the plan of this conspiracy and murder, they wanted to take a little girl, the daughter of the rich and first rape her and then murder her, and then collect the ransom. If that evidence had been put in by the State, I would have thought it was an aggravation.
These three wise men, with their distorted theories, hired by the defense, put that evidence in. Clarence Darrow calls it a mitigating circumstance. Why, when they murder a boy, they ought to be treated with kindness and consideration. If they had taken a little tot, a little girl, debauched her and raped her, I suppose we ought to give them each a medal and tell them to go on their ways.