Darrow asked the jury to try to put themselves in the defendants’ position before they passed judgment on them. "The Sweets spent their first night in their new home afraid to go to bed," he said. "The next night they spent in jail. Now the state wants them to spend the rest of their lives in the penitentiary."

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Finally, with many in the audience moved to tears, Darrow ended his powerful plea. "I speak to you not only in behalf of them, but in behalf of the millions of black faces who look to these 12 white faces for confidence and trust and hope in the institutions of our land. . . . I ask you in the name of the future to do justice in this case." Judge Murphy could barely contain his emotions as Darrow returned to his chair. One lawyer later said he had heard "about lawyers making a judge cry but Darrow is the first man I actually saw do it."

Though Toms was in the unenviable position of following Darrow, he delivered a strong closing statement. The jury’s responsibility, he noted, was not to solve the race issue but to determine who had killed Breiner, whose right to live was more important than Sweet’s "right to live where you please, in a certain house on a certain street." Toms directed his final remarks to his opponents. "Back of all your sophistry and transparent political philosophy, gentlemen of the defense, back of all your prating of civil rights, back of your psychology and theory of race hatred, lies the stark body of Leon Breiner with a bullet hole in his back."

Murphy instructed the jury to consider the defendants’ race and color, and the fact that a man’s home is his castle "whether he is white or black." They should also ask themselves, he added, if they had reasonable cause to sense danger. If such a belief existed, he said, "the shooting would be justifiable and the defendants would be not guilty."

Darrow believed these instructions had "scarcely left a chance for them to do anything but acquit," but the jury thought otherwise. Deliberations lasted 46 hours and were punctuated by loud arguments. People outside the jury room sometimes heard angry voices shouting phrases such as "What’s the use of arguing with these fellows?", "Two of you had these fellows convicted before you came in here," and "I’ll stay here 20 years, if necessary, and I am younger than any of you." In the end, they could not agree on a verdict and Murphy was forced to discharge them.

Toms immediately stated his intention to re-try the defendants. For the second trial Darrow switched tactics. Instead of defending all 11 at the same time, he would represent each one separately. The State chose first to prosecute Henry Sweet, who was the only one to admit firing his gun. Darrow was confident that if he could gain an acquittal for Henry, the other cases would crumble.

The second trial opened in April 1926. Testimony generally followed the same lines as the first trial, although Darrow learned from one state witness that at a meeting of the Waterworks Association, a representative from a similar neighborhood group had promoted violence to drive out the Sweets. Violence, he told the group, worked when they wanted to keep their street white.

Few people in any courtroom ever experienced anything similar to Darrow’s closing. Although exhausted by the two trials, Darrow delivered an epic eight-hour speech that captivated his audience. "One could have heard a pin drop in the crowded courtroom," marveled one observer. "Sometimes his resonant, melodious voice sank to a whisper. Sometimes it rose in a roar of indignation."

Darrow pulled few punches in characterizing Breiner as "a conspirator in as foul a conspiracy as was ever hatched in a community; in a conspiracy to drive from their homes a little family of black people." He compared Breiner to ancient Romans who eagerly rushed to the Coliseum to watch lions mangle Christians. "He was there waiting to see these black men driven from their homes, and you know it; peacefully smoking his pipe, and as innocent a man as ever scuttled a ship."

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