Based on reports of when Frank was kidnapped, at about what time was he hanged? 2. You are one of the attorneys hired by Leo Frank to defend him in the murder trial. Come up with different defense tactics than what was originally proposed during Leo Frank's trial. 3. Stage a mock trial of the Leo Frank Case.
Feb 23, 2018 · The crucial role of the janitor Jim Conley has come under particular scrutiny - the bloody shirt, his lies to the police, his admission that he wrote the so-called murder notes, and his rehearsed testimony at the trial make Conley stand out as the likely real murderer for many advocates of Frank's innocence. The unsettling case of Leo Frank had largely been forgotten by …
Leo Frank, convicted in 1913 and lynched in 1915 in one of the most notorious murder cases in American history, was innocent, according to a sworn statement given by a witness in the case.
May 31, 2019 · Leo Frank on trial in August 1913. Photograph by Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP Images. In early May, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced that he will reopen one of the most ...
Feb 22, 2022 · Documents on Behalf of the Leo M. Frank Legal Defense Team and Partisan Side of the Leo Frank Equation 1913 to 2013: This section lists documents, videos, and articles, divided as primary and secondary sources that directly attempt or tend to argue in favor of Leo Frank’s innocence and promote the theory Jim Conley was the real murderer. Begin this section by …
Meanwhile, the defense requested a mistrial because it believed the jurors had been intimidated by the people inside and outside the courtroom, but the motion was denied. Fearing for the safety of Frank and his lawyers in case of an acquittal, Roan and the defense agreed that neither Frank nor his defense attorneys would be present when the verdict was read. On August 25, 1913, after less than four hours of deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous guilty verdict convicting Frank of murder.
Slaton's legal rationale was that there was sufficient new evidence not available at the original trial to justify Frank's actions. He wrote:
Early life. Leo Max Frank was born in Cuero, Texas on April 17, 1884 to Rudolph Frank and Rachel "Rae" Jacobs. The family moved to Brooklyn in 1884 when Leo was three months old. He attended New York City public schools and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1902.
v. t. e. Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention.
Osborn reviewed the previous evidence at the commutation hearing and commented, for the first time, that the notes were written in the third person rather than the first person. He said that the first person would have been more logical since they were intended to be the final statements of a dying Phagan. He argued this was the type of error that Conley would have made, rather than Frank, as Conley was a sweeper and not a Cornell -educated manager like Frank.
Comparison has been made to the contemporaneous trial known as "the Beilis trial" and "the Beilis affair." A book titled The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank), 1894–1915 also compared aspects of these two trials to that of Alfred Dreyfus ("the Dreyfus affair ").
Shortly after Mary's birth, her mother, Frances Phagan, moved the family back to their hometown of Marietta, Georgia. During or after 1907, they again relocated to East Point, Georgia, in northwest Atlanta, where Frances opened a boarding house. Mary Phagan left school at age 10 to work part-time in a textile mill. In 1912, after her mother married John William Coleman, the family moved into the city of Atlanta. That spring, Phagan took a job with the National Pencil Company, where she earned ten cents an hour operating a knurling machine that inserted rubber erasers into the metal tips of pencils, and worked 55 hours per week. She worked across the hallway from Leo Frank's office.
Mary Phagan, a 13 year old factory worker , became a symbol of child labor and the issues it posed. Leo Frank, a Jew and the manager of the factory, represented a northern capitalist who was viewed as exploiting young children. 2.
affidavit: a sworn statement in writing; a declaration in writing, signed and made upon oath before an authorized magistrate. Anti-Defamation League: formed in 1913, the Anti-Defamation League's mission is "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike".
DNA would be one of the main tools investigators would have used to identify the real killer. Witnesses would certainly be questioned, but the use of polygraph tests – while not admissible in court – might be considered in deciding the identity of the killer.
bias: a leaning of the mind; propensity or prepossession toward an object or view, not leaving the mind indifferent; bent inclination. commute (the sentence): to diminish; as, to commute a sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life.
chief executive: the person who holds the office of head of state of the government defense. attorney: a lawyer representing the accused. due process: the administration of justice according to established rules and principles. industrialism: devotion to industrial pursuits; labor; industry.
lynching: to inflict punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law, as when a mob captures and hangs a suspected person. pardon: the act of pardoning; forgiveness, as of an offender, or of an offense; release from penalty; remission of punishment; absolution.
petition: a written document that people sign to show that they want a person or organization to do or change something. populist: a member of the People's party. propaganda: any organization or plan for spreading a particular doctrine or a system of principles.
On the basis of this evidence, and his nervy demeanour, Frank was arrested on suspicion of the murder. Another man, the factory's black janitor Jim Conley, was also arrested after witnesses saw him washing red stains out of a shirt in a faucet behind the factory.
Leo Frank took his terrible fate with a quiet dignity. As the blind-fold was placed over his eyes he asked only that his wedding ring be given to his wife. Watched on by Atlanta's great and good, he was then hung to death from the branch of a tree.
As Leo Frank's 14-year-old office boy in 1913, Mann had actually witnessed a co-worker trying to dispose of the body of Mary Phagan.
After all of his appeals failed, Leo Frank's supporters turned to state Governor John Slaton. Slaton had personally reviewed the case and come to the conclusion Frank was innocent. In the face of fierce opposition, Slatton made the fateful decision to commute Leo Frank's deaths sentence to life imprisonment.
At the trial, Mary Phagan's murder was portrayed as sexually motivated. Leo Frank, the jury was told, was a pervert and deviant with a history of sexually harassing young female employees and even boys.
In the aftermath of the murder, numerous witnesses testified that Leo Frank was behaving in an odd manner, unusually edgy and nervous to the extent that he was unable to perform simple tasks like unlocking a door or operating the factory time clock.
Jim Conley's testimony did more than anything to seal Leo Frank's fate. Yet one strange and unpleasant admission from Frank's supposed accomplice, largely overlooked at the time, appears to seriously contradict a key aspect of his story.
Frank, a Jewish factory manager, was lynched amid a wave of anti-Semitism after his conviction. On Sunday, March 7, 1982, The Tennessean printed a 10-page special section titled "Justice Betrayed: A Sin of Silence," in which a key witness in the Leo Frank case, Alonzo Mann, said false testimony led to Frank 's conviction.
An Innocent Man Was Lynched. Leo Frank, convicted in 1913 and lynched in 1915 in one of the most notorious murder cases in American history, was innocent, according to a sworn statement given by a witness in the case. The testimony used to convict Frank was perjured, and the real killer of 14-year-old Mary Phagan was the man who gave ...
This fact was cited as crucial by Georgia Gov. John Slaton when he commuted Frank's sentence in 1915 to life imprisonment. There is no way that what Mann says today can be reconciled with the version of events which Conley related in court in 1913. Either Conley lied then, or Mann is lying now.
Atlanta police, under extreme pressure to solve the case, accused Leo Frank of having murdered Mary Phagan. Sex was implied as the motive. The evidence was flimsy and circumstantial — except for the detailed testimony of the prosecution's chief witness, Jim Conley.
American State Trials 1918, Volume X. The introduction tends to side with Leo M. Frank, followed by an extremely abridged version of the trial testimony, the four closing arguments, the appeals, and the lynching.
The Mystery of the Pencil Factory by Sidney Sutherland, published in 1929. Despite its mistakes and errors, it is a good read and takes the side of Leo M. Frank.
The People v. Leo Frank, 2009, by Ben Loeterman and Steve Oney. A fictionalized docudrama taking the side of Leo Frank as having been framed. The movie makes the suggestion that if Leo Frank had answered the phone in the middle of the night after the murder occurred, the course of his destiny might have been radically different.
Guilty or Not Guilty. An Account of the Trial of the Leo Frank Case By Francis Xavier Busch. In the conclusion of this book on the chapter about Leo M. Frank, it suggests the verdict could have easily gone either way.
An Unspeakable Crime by Marie Alphin: Elaine Marie Alphin takes the side of Leo Frank and writes the book to convince high school students that Frank was an innocent Jew from Brooklyn railroaded in a bigoted and media conspiracy. She doesn’t add any new and interesting analysis to the case, but she certainly leaves out as much damaging evidence against Leo Frank as possible. The book completely fabricates the Leo Frank case, turning it into a weird racist book. Read the reviews on Amazon.com to get an idea of what a total disaster this book is despite being printed on exquisitely gorgeous paper.
Parade is a musical with a book by Alfred Uhry, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. The musical was first produced on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on December 17, 1998. The production was directed by Harold Prince and closed 28 February 1999 after only thirty-nine previews and eighty-four regular performances. It starred Brent Carver as Leo Frank, Carolee Carmello as Lucille Frank, and Christy Carlson Romano as Mary Phagan (Wikipedia, 2011).
Jimmy Hoffa was last seen standing outside the restaurant on July 30, 1975. Periodic searches for Hoffa's body have always turned up empty, including one in a Detroit lumberyard in 2009; a Roseville, Michigan, driveway in 2012; and a farm in Oakland Township, Michigan, in 2013.
Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien, left, appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. The conventional wisdom was that O’Brien picked up Hoffa from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Michigan on July 30, 1975, and drove him to his death, Goldsmith told Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ in an ...
A new film about Hoffa's death and disappearance, "The Irishman," written and directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Al Pacino as the labor leader, premieres at the New York Film Festival this week and will be released on Netflix in November .
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention. His lynchingtwo years later, in response to the commutation of his death sentence, became the focus of social, regional, polit…
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention. His lynchingtwo years later, in response to the commutation of his death sentence, became the focus of social, regional, polit…
On May 23, 1913, a grand jury convened to hear evidence for an indictmentagainst Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan. The prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey, presented only enough information to obtain the indictment, assuring the jury that additional information would be provided during the trial. The next day, May 24, the jury voted for an indictment. Meanwhile, Frank's legal team suggested t…
In the early 20th century, Atlanta, Georgia's capital city, underwent significant economic and social change. To serve a growing economy based on manufacturing and commerce, many people left the countryside to relocate in Atlanta. Men from the traditional and paternalistic rural society felt it degrading that women were moving to the city to work in factories.
During this era, Atlanta's rabbis and Jewish community leaders helped to resolve animosity towa…
Mary Phagan was born on June 1, 1899, into an established Georgia family of tenant farmers. Her father died before she was born. Shortly after Mary's birth, her mother, Frances Phagan, moved the family back to their hometown of Marietta, Georgia. During or after 1907, they again relocated to East Point, Georgia, in southwest Atlanta, where Frances opened a boarding house. Mar…
Under Georgia law at the time, appeals of death penalty cases had to be based on errors of law, not a re-evaluation of the evidence presented at trial. The appeals process began with a reconsideration by the original trial judge. The defense presented a written appeal alleging 115 procedural problems. These included claims of jury prejudice, intimidation of the jury by the crowds outside the courthouse, the admission of Conley's testimony concerning Frank's alleged …
On April 22, 1915, an application for a commutation of Frank's death sentence was submitted to a three-person Prison Commission in Georgia; it was rejected on June 9 by a vote of 2–1. The dissenter indicated that he felt it was wrong to execute a man "on the testimony of an accomplice, when the circumstances of the crime tend to fix the guilt upon the accomplice." The application then pass…
The sensationalism in the press started before the trial and continued throughout the trial, the appeals process, the commutation decision, and beyond. At the time, local papers were the dominant source of information, but they were not entirely anti-Frank. The Constitution alone assumed Frank's guilt, while both the Georgian and the Journal would later comment about the publi…
The June 21, 1915 commutation provoked Tom Watson into advocating Frank's lynching. He wrote in The Jeffersonian and Watson's Magazine: "This country has nothing to fear from its rural communities. Lynch law is a good sign; it shows that a sense of justice lives among the people." A group of prominent men organized themselves into the "Vigilance Committee" and openly planned …