Clarence Darrow was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He's probably most famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial; but, Leopold and Loeb is more relevant.
Darrow defended Leopold and Loeb through his own practice; but, it's illustrative of the mentality and ethics espoused by the people who were involved with the ACLU at its inception as opposed to now.
For those of you who don't know, Leopold and Loeb was a murder case in 1924 in which two young men kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy. They were guilty. They were found guilty. Darrow still gave a passionate defense and a plea for the men to be spared the death penalty.
Darrow didn't need to defend the men. He was far past being a court appointed attorney at that point. But, he believed what is still stated on the ACLU's website, that everyone deserves a competent defense regardless of guilt. He also, along with his fellow members, also recognized the importance of preserving civil liberties wherever they're abridged and they recognized the problem of government overreach. They practiced what they preached.
The ACLU's statement following the Rittenhouse verdict, needless to say, falls short of Clarence Darrow. It basically reads like a call to value activism over facts in court. The silence is also deafening in regard to the prosecution attacking Rittenhouse for exercising his 5th Amendment rights leading up to the trial. The ACLU should be all over that.
This is just the latest in a long line of failures on the part of the ACLU which I absolutely believe would have caused Darrow to leave the organization in disgust if he were still around. The once great organization who took it upon itself to defend the rights of the people from the overreach of the state seems to have become a champion of state overreach. The organization that once defended the First Amendment right of Nazis to march had nothing to say about a nearly identical and clearly illegal case of a city forcing out a conservative event.
I regret ever giving the ACLU a dime of my money. The organization is unworthy of the name. You can't call yourself the American Civil Liberties Union if you won't defend civil liberties for all people regardless of political affiliation or personal feelings.