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The Leo Frank case is one of the most notorious and highly publicized cases in the legal annals of Georgia. A Jewish man in Atlanta was placed on trial and convicted of raping and murdering a thirteen-year-old girl who worked for the National Pencil Company, which he managed.
Frank’s B’nai B’rith—and all Jewish organizations—were totally absent from the anti-lynching movement. In fact, Leo Frank’s main appeals attorney, Louis Marshall, as president of the American Jewish Committee, fought to undermine anti-lynching legislation, calling it “unconstitutional” and a violation of “state’s rights.” (Pages 88, 478-479.)
Apr 05, 2022 · The Trial of Leo Frank, Reuben R. Arnold’s address to the court on his behalf delivered in late August 1913 is available in American State Trials Volume X 1918, and the post-trial speech delivered October 1913 to seek a new trial for Leo Frank is available in PDF format: Argument of Reuben Rose Arnold at the Trial of Leo M. Frank, October 1913.
Aug 17, 2015 · Leo Frank made what amounted to a virtual murder confession. He changed his alibi on the witness stand and placed himself at the scene of the crime. You won’t learn about this fact from Steve Oney, Leonard Dinnerstein, ADL, SPLC or other Jewish partisons, but you can learn what really happened at The American Mercury concerning why Leo Frank’s guilt was …
Feb 23, 2018 · Conley was guided in the best way to engage jurors, to maintain eye-contact and remain composed. Conley's lawyer, William Smith, took on the role of Leo Frank's attorney, and role-played the fiercest possible cross-examination they could imagine Conley enduring, ensuring he had suitable rebuttals for anything he may be challenged on. It worked.
Leo Frank, in full Leo Max Frank, (born April 17, 1884, Cuero, Texas, U.S.—died August 17, 1915, Marietta, Georgia), American factory superintendent whose conviction in 1913 for the murder of Mary Phagan resulted in his lynching.
Frank's last words were, "I think more of my wife and my mother than I do of my own life." Frank's body was eventually transferred to an undertaker and buried in the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing New York. After Frank's lynching, approximately half of Georgia's 3,000 Jews left the state.
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....Leo FrankAlma materCornell UniversityEmployerNational Pencil Company, Atlanta (1908–1915)10 more rows
The discovery of the body of a thirteen-year-old girl in the basement of an Atlanta pencil factory where she had gone to collect her pay check shocked the citizens of that crime-ravaged southern city and roused its public officials to find a suspect and secure a conviction.
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.
Leo Frank's lynching on the morning of August 17, 1915.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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 …
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 …