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Will New District Attorney Bow to Pressure to Exonerate Leo Frank for Murder of Little Mary Phagan?

Attorney Fani Willis beat Fulton County DA Paul Howard Jr. in a landslide victory —72% to 28% But will she bow to the same pressure that was put on her former boss to exonerate a man who raped and murdered our family member? The Conviction Integrity Unit established under Fulton County DA Paul Howard was not transparent: the Phagan family was not contacted and he refused to acknowledge the Phagan family. Obviously, it was set up for one single goal—to “legally” clear Leo Frank of a heinous murder—and to pin his crime on a Black man! The recent D.A. election victor Fani Willis is making strong statements about her integrity and skill, but so did Howard before succumbing to the behind-the scenes pressure from the ADL, ex-governor Roy Barnes, and Rabbi Steven Lebow, whose apparent goal has been to lie their way to victory. Fani Willis is quoted recently in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“Cases won’t be for sale under my administration. Not for an endorsement, not for money, not for anything.” “You have my word, during my tenure as district attorney in Fulton County, we will become a beacon for justice and ethics in Georgia and across the nation.” “Willis vowed to bring ‘transparency and accountability’ to the DA’s office.” [Willis] “announced she intends to clean house in the Public Integrity Unity, which handles police-involved shootings.” How about cleaning house in the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU)? So, how is it that Leo Frank—a privileged white rich man convicted of murder and having exhausted every possible court appeals process, and having been previously rejected as a pardon candidate—now gets a CIU Review? For over a century, propaganda has masqueraded as “new evidence”: there have been plays, articles, books, videos, movies, dramas claiming death-bed confessions, bite marks and teeth x-rays (no evidence), and anti-Semitic pogroms (no evidence). Virtually all these works have simply disregarded the physical evidence to claim that an African American man named James Conley committed the crime. They ignore Conley’s riveting 15- hour testimony under oath that proved Frank was the murderer. Frank himself refused to testify and would not be sworn at his own trial. Nor would his attorneys dare to cross-examine twenty young girls who testified that Frank had sexually harassed them constantly—he was the Jeffrey Epstein/Harvey Weinstein of his time! Today, Frank’s advocates rely on the 1982 errorfilled “testimony” of an elderly Alonzo Mann who claimed to see many things in 1913 that simply could not have happened. That is what the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles found when they dismissed his new statements as insufficient to exonerate the murderer. Frank’s advocates made a second attempt at obtaining exoneration in 1986, which resulted in the Parole Board granting a posthumous pardon “without attempting to address the question of guilt or innocence.” More recently, requests to the Georgia Governor and the Georgia Legislature (2017 requests denied) have tried to enforce Frank’s innocence but do not provide any new, original evidence that would vacate the original verdict of guilty; rather, they just parrot propaganda of other pro-Frank partisans. Conviction Integrity Unit In 2019, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard established a “Conviction Integrity Unit” that he said would review the Leo Frank murder conviction of 1913. Those named as participants in this move are the following:

• Former Governor Roy Barnes
• Rabbi Steven Lebow
• ADL Attorney Dale Schwartz
• Melissa D. Redmon, director of the UG Law School
•Former Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears
•Former Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher
•Cobb County Superior Court Chief Judge J. Stephen Schuster (Retired)
•Assistant District Attorney Van Pearlberg

The Family of Mary Phagan believes that these individuals have “colluded” since August of 2018 to find a way to vacate the conviction of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan. Dale Schwartz was quoted thus: “we’re still trying to get a new trial that would, in effect, exonerate him.” Every serious student of the case is aware that in 1914, after his conviction and death sentence, several attempts were made by Frank’s supporters to “exonerate” him using “new evidence” that included planted evidence and false witness affidavits later found to have been obtained by bribery and other illegal means. [See the Atlanta Constitution, May 5, 1914, p. 1.] This corrupt behavior IS STILL GOING ON! According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (May 7, 2019), D.A. Howard stated, “The Frank Case helped inspire the creation of the new unit” and that former Gov. Roy Barnes “will serve as a consultant,” and it was further reported that Barnes “had lobbied the district attorney to reexamine Frank’s case.” Let us be clear what that means. Former Gov. Barnes has swayed, influenced, and brought pressure (political bullying) to bear on the Fulton County DA’s office to reexamine the Frank/Phagan case. Those statements alone convince us that there will be no fair hearing—the Conviction Integrity Unity has already re-adjudicated the Leo Frank case. According to the article, Barnes said he is convinced that this will happen: “‘There is no doubt in my mind, and we’ll [Who is “we?”] prove it at the appropriate time, that Frank was not guilty.’” Former Governor Roy Barnes should recuse himself from this case, as well as members of and “consultants” to the Conviction Integrity Unit who have categorically stated that Frank is not guilty. NO NEW EVIDENCE! After all his big and small deceptions revealed in his February 2020 lecture in Savannah, the ADL’s expert on the Leo Frank case, author Steve Oney, finally got down to the reality that after 107 years of failed attempts to exonerate Frank, D.A. Paul Howard’s new Conviction Integrity Unit will have NO NEW EVIDENCE to make a judgment. Oney told the audience, “I don’t see any new evidence out there” that might add anything new to the case. This is a bombshell because D.A. Paul Howard has said, “The unit will investigate claims of actual innocence to determine whether new evidence or facts may prove a convicted defendant didn’t commit the offense.” Howard went further: “The CIU will review cases in which there is new factual, physical, or forensic evidence. The unit will also review cases in which there is relevant evidence that went untested at the time of trial or some other new evidence that a person was convicted wrongfully.” Aimee Maxwell, the director of the D.A.’s Conviction Integrity Unit, was interviewed on WABE’s Closer Look program and was asked, “What is the criteria” for evaluating a case? Ms. Maxwell answered: “Well, for actual innocence, what we’re really looking at is some new evidence—evidence that a court hasn’t looked at...” The fact is, every bit of “new evidence” only supports the verdict of guilty. The new CIU established by D.A. Paul Howard, and now headed by D.A. Fani Willis, has been made aware of the serious perjuries that have been told to exonerate Frank and to posthumously convict the African American man who Frank set up to take the fall. This is not a theory—this is a documented fact. Will the D.A.’s Conviction Integrity Unit continue the deception? History shows that the integrity of Frank’s conviction is secure. The integrity of the District Attorney and her office is what really is at stake. The Hypocrisy of the Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) & the Leo Frank Case The Inaugural Conviction Integrity Unit Reception was held at the Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta on Wednesday, January 8, 2019. The Keynote Speaker was Ambassador Andrew Young, Jr. But what is the Conviction Integrity Unit? According to its own description, “The Conviction Integrity Unit endeavors to review past convictions for credible claims of actual innocence, wrongful conviction, and, where feasible, sentencing inequities. This process is afforded to applicants regardless of whether they are pro se or represented by an attorney. The CIU is committed to ensuring all submissions receive a thorough and equitable review.”

Cases the CIU will review:

1. Claims of actual innocence
2. Claims of Constitutional Violations
3. In the interest of Justice
4. Sentence Modification
5. Cases of Historical Significance

That sounds good, but this CIU was NOT the brainchild of the Fulton County D.A. According to former governor Roy Barnes, a group of pro-Frank crusaders (including himself) brought the Leo Frank case to the D.A. to ask him to exonerate this murderer (and to convict a black man for Frank’s 107-year-old crime!) The Milledgeville Journal reported that “When Howard asked Barnes what he had in mind, Barnes said he wanted to see if he could get the judgment against Frank set aside. Howard said he was open to the idea, but believed if he assembled a team to consider it, the team should look at more than one case [such as Wayne Williams].” So it was already determined that the Leo Frank Case would be reviewed before the announcement of the CIU! The Leo Frank Case did not follow the CIU’s own protocol. Why not?

Same Ol’ Lies, Over & Over

Rabbi Steven Lebow, Jerry Klinger, Allison Padilla-Goodman of the ADL, Barnes, and their ilk continue to push the same lies and distortions. This is why none of them will actually publish any serious or scholarly work on this subject, like the Phagan family has done. It would be considered laughable. Here are some facts that they tried to keep hidden from D.A. Paul Howard: Leo Frank was prosecuted after a grand jury with five Jewish members indicted him.

All three Georgian newspapers in 1913 had Jewish editors, and they never reported anti-Semitic slurs or shouts either before, during, or after Frank’s trial.

Frank appealed the guilty verdict and lost 13 separate times.

The claims that the trial was dominated by a mob chanting “Kill the Jew!” was debunked by their own expert, Steve Oney, who said “It never happened.” Why aren’t these facts ever brought up? If one reads the old newspapers, as Oney did, one will not see any mobs or read any anti-Semitism. There were orderly crowds of curious people who waited to get in to the courthouse to view the trial, but that was it. Read many of these articles on LittleMaryPhagan.com. We have made them available to the public. Why won’t LeBow et al. provide proof of their tired false claims. Nowhere can it be found in the original newspapers that there was a “mob outside of the courtroom shouting anti-Semitic slurs” at the jurors or anyone else. The Jewish people were respected members of society in Georgia at the time as well. The religion of Leo Frank played no role in his guilty verdict or his lynching, which was the result of the reprehensible crime he committed. Oddly enough, it was Frank’s own mother who brought religion into the trial by embarrassing herself in court with the shouting of anti-Christian slurs at the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey.

Jerry Klinger has made a career out of corrupting the facts of the case even though the provable realities have been presented to him on multiple occasions. Nevertheless he recently wrote that “Georgia media’s reporting encouraged their basest desires, the Jew’s blood,” which is an outright falsehood. Of course, today’s Georgia media can easily check this claim, having full and complete access to all of their own archives. Yet, for some unknown reason they won’t. So, Klinger, Lebow and others can blatantly lie with impunity, never fearing they will be challenged. Author Steve Oney, whose 742-page book is considered by the ADL as their top authority, reported: “To the extent that there was bias in the coverage, it was mostly in Frank’s favor…” He goes on to state that Atlanta’s newspapers, “evincing the prejudices of the time, ridiculed the state’s star witness—a black factory janitor named Jim Conley…” In fact, Atlanta’s media declared Frank an innocent man and when they brought up his Jewish background, it was only to reinforce how much integrity he had as the leader of B’nai B’rith. The three Georgian papers—all with Jewish editors—went along with Frank’s defense team in their racist desire to pin the crime on two separate African American men—first Newt Lee (the night watchman who discovered the body), and then Jim Conley. Multiple articles of the Klinger kind are being written every year memorializing Frank’s lynching, either refusing to acknowledge that Leo Frank could have been guilty (based on the mounds of evidence), or blatantly lying about “anti-Semitic mobs” or Frank’s Jewish background being a major factor in the case. More people need to write the truth of the matter so that people are not misled and so that an injustice is not committed against Mary Phagan and the Phagan family.

The ADL has been promoting a lie—for over a century!

“HANG THE JEW, HANG THE JEW” is what the ADL says was chanted during the month-long trial, but its own expert Steve Oney says it NEVER OCCURRED! According to Oney, at the time of Mary Phagan’s murder, “Atlanta was a philo-Semitic city. Its assimilated, German-Jewish elite were part of the financial and legal power structure…” The governor in Frank’s 1915 commutation, John Slaton, also addressed the false claim of an “anti-Semitic mob” surrounding the courtroom pressing to lynch Frank: “No such attack was made and…none was contemplated.” Governor Slaton also countered the false claim of an “anti-Semitic” atmosphere by reminding Frank supporters that Jews were highly respected and appreciated in Georgia because they had been “conspicuous” contributors to the history and development of the state. Mr. Oney refutes the claim that there were anti-Semitic mobs shouting “Hang the Jew!” He told the Jewish Journal: “[I]t didn’t happen. It was something that someone wrote a couple [of] years after the crime, and then it got stuck into subsequent recountings of the story…. Jews were accepted in the city, and the record does not substantiate subsequent reports that the crowd outside the courtroom shouted at the jurors: ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll hang you.’” It has been claimed that “anti-Semitism” and the “hatred of Jews” motivated Frank’s conviction and lynching. And yet, incredibly, there was no anti- Semitism expressed by police, detectives, prosecutors, jurors, judge, or reporters! There was no “prejudicial trial” or “mob rule” or anti-Jewish bigotry of any kind. Most people are unaware that the prosecutor first brought his case against Leo Frank before a 23-member grand jury that included five prominent members of the Jewish community (including at least two from Frank’s own synagogue), and all the grand jurors signed the bill of indictment against Leo Frank. The Leo Frank trial judge Leonard S. Roan was once a law partner of one of Frank’s defense attorneys and, according to a confidential ADL memo: “In general, the rulings of the trial Judge had been favorable to the defense.” Frank’s defense attorney even declared after the trial: “We do not make the least criticism of Judge Roan. [He] is one of the best men in Georgia and is an able and conscientious judge.” The false claims of anti-Semitism are simply unfounded and untrue.

Roy Barnes’s False Statements

“I’m convinced through the reading not only did he not get a fair trial, he was not guilty. The case just simply was wrong....There’s no question he didn’t get a fair shot.... There is substantial reasonable doubt as to whether Frank was guilty.” The FACTS: Roy Barnes recently told some law students that “If you get interested in this case,” they should read the book by author Steve Oney. But when asked if the trial jury “ignored the facts in the case,” Oney responded, “No, I think there was a reasonable case against Leo Frank.” Even Gov. John Slaton, who (under political pressure) commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment in 1915, wrote: “The Supreme Court…determined as a matter of law, and correctly in my judgment, that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the [guilty] verdict. Leo Frank: White Privilege White Privilege is the unearned, mostly unacknowledged social advantage white people have over other racial groups simply because they are white. In 1913, Leo Frank was convicted for the murder of Little Mary Phagan based on the direct evidence found at the scene of the crime as well as circumstantial evidence and because he was a “sexual deviant/degenerate” with a long history of sexually molesting his female employees. Leo Frank and his defense team used “White Privilege” as a tool to play on white fears about stereotypes of “Negroes” being savage beasts and pathological liars. Scholars of the case have admitted that Leo Frank and his supporters actually relied on racism to defend himself against charges they knew were true. Jewish historian Theodore Rosengarten bluntly asserted that “Readers who wish to find a progressive Jewish social ethic at work in the Frank camp will be sorely disappointed. Frank’s lawyers played the race card for all it was worth.” He was not the only one:

Documented Sources: White Privilege and Leo Frank’s Racism

Harry Golden, A Little Girl is Dead (1965), p. xv:

“Until the mid-1960s, let alone in 1913, no white man in any of the old Confederate States had ever been convicted of a capital offense on the testimony of a Negro.”

Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey, The Silent and the Damned (1988), p. 109: “Leo Frank was convicted on the strength of a black man’s testimony—truly a rare event in the South in the early years of the twentieth century. Certainly the words of a black man were almost never taken over those of a white man. And Frank was convicted by an all-white jury.”

Jeffrey Melnick, Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South (2000), pages xi, 8, 37, 43, 61, 100, 111: “…Frank and his supporters used racist language to demean Conley and took refuge in what they understood to be the privilege of Jewish whiteness.” “This represented the first capital case in postbellum southern history in which a ‘white’ defendant was condemned by the testimony of an African American.” “…Jews like Leo Frank were much more likely to take up whiteness as a self-concept and mode of behavior than their northern counterparts…” “Frank considered himself to be white and enjoyed the privileges thereof, including African American domestic help and control over a large number of poor southerners—white and African American.” “Another of Frank’s lawyers referred to Conley as a ‘dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger.’”

“…Frank’s people tried to establish Frank’s ‘whiteness’ (and I mean that doubly here to signify his racial standing and his innocence) by demonstrating his distance from even the most trivial constituent of American culture that might be traceable to African Americans.” “Frank’s lawyers employed racial epithets at every turn, and... capitalized on much the same sort of racist thinking that helped to turn public opinion against their man.”

Charles and Louise Samuels, Night Fell on Georgia (1956), pages 158, 159: “Again it should be noted that the men defending Frank, while protesting the [nonexistant] prejudice against Jews, saw no reason why anyone should object to their own often expressed prejudice against Negroes.” “‘Who is Conley?’ [the defense lawyer Luther Rosser] demanded. ‘Who was Conley, as he used to be and as you have seen him? He was a dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger.’”

Steve Oney, And the Dead Shall Rise (2003), page 148: “For one thing, Leo Frank had already made the grounds of the impending legal battle clear. ‘No white man killed Mary Phagan,’ the factory superintendent had reportedly told a prison attaché upon hearing of Conley’s affidavits. ‘It’s a negro crime, through and through.’ The Negro to whom Frank was referring was, of course, poor Jim, and as [attorney William] Smith later phrased it, the accused was going to use every bit of his ‘ great influence and unlimited financial means’ to bring the point home to a jury.”

Nation of Islam, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 (2016), pages 125, 362: “Frank’s attorneys seized upon the state’s extraordinary blurring of the color line to make their stand. They looked beyond the murder of Mary Phagan and took the position that Frank’s conviction would in fact undermine sacred Southern racial traditions and set in motion a racial upheaval far more significant than Frank’s actual guilt or innocence.” “Today’s believers in the innocence of Leo Frank have continued the tactic pursued in the courtroom by his lawyers, who assigned all manner of dishonesty to James Conley: Frank’s attorneys variously called Conley ‘a dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger’; ‘a dirty negro crook’; a ‘beastly, drunken, filthy, lying nigger’; a ‘ filthy, criminal, lying negro’—being careful to pair untruthfulness and uncleanliness with the Black race.”

R. Barri Flowers, Murder Chronicles (2014): “Racism and stereotyping had been part of the defense strategy throughout the trial, as Frank’s attorneys portrayed Conley as being ‘especially disposed to lying and murdering because of his race.’”

Nancy MacLean, “The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered” (1991), characterizes Frank’s defense as: “a virulent racist offense against ... Jim Conley.” “Frank’s attorneys based their case on the most vicious antiblack stereotypes of the day and on outspoken appeals to white solidarity...”

Dr. Stuart Rockoff, director of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience: “Thus, their defense of Frank was largely an asserting of his and, by extension, their own whiteness.”

Phagan Family Position Paper, June 2019, pages 7-9: “Leo Frank’s lawyers argued to the jury of twelve white men that murder, rape, and robbery were ‘ negro crimes’ and thus Frank, a white man, could not have committed the murder of Mary Phagan. One defense attorney said that ‘the murder was the unreasoning crime of a negro,’ that ‘It isn’t a white man’s crime.’”

Albert S. Lindemann, The Jew Accused, (1991), page 245: “Frank resorted to racial stereotypes in his own defense. He insisted that Mary must have been killed by some sort of violent, primitive brute—in short, a Black, not a Jew. Frank’s lawyers were energetic in insisting that murder of this sort was not a Jewish crime, and they did not hesitate to exploit anti-Black bigotry. They referred to Jim Conley…as a ‘dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger’...” “There was something...hypocritical about such men, denouncing the bigoty against Jews that they asserted was responsible for the charges against Frank, yet resorting to a far more explicit and vicious bigotry against Blacks in his defense. Significantly, the prosecution avoided racial stereotyping, at least of this blatant sort.” Frank’s own racist thinking is reflected in an Atlanta Constitution front-page headline on May 31, 1913: “Mary Phagan’s Murder Was Work of a Negro Declares Leo M. Frank.” The newspaper quoted Frank: “Here is a negro, not alone with the shiftless and lying habits of an element of his race, that is common to the South….No white man killed Mary Phagan. It’s a negro’s crime, through and through. No man with common sense would even suspect I did it.”

Leo Frank’s supporters then and now have played the White Privilege race card and falsely represent an African American man as the “real killer.” For 107 years James “Jim” Conley has been scapegoated in nearly all the literature on the case. He was a sweeper in the factory on the day of the murder who was ordered by his boss Leo Frank to help move the dead body of Mary Phagan. When Conley confessed to his accessory-after-the-fact role, Frank and his supporters tried (and continue to this day) to smear Conley as a devious criminal who got away with murder, but Conley’s very detailed confession—corroborated by the physical evidence at the crime scene—was so convincing that it became central to the prosecution’s case. (At trial, Leo Frank refused to be cross-examined by prosecutors, but James Conley withstood nearly 16 hours of cross-examination—under oath.) Before he accused James Conley of the crime, Leo Frank worked overtime to pin the murder on the African American night watchman who found Mary Phagan’s body, Newt Lee. Frank hired private detectives who planted a blood-soaked shirt in the innocent black man’s home, and then Frank told the police where they could find that damning “evidence.” When the newspapers reported that a bloody shirt was found at Lee’s home, it almost caused an innocent man to be lynched. Luckily for Lee, Frank’s private detectives did such a sloppy job at planting the shirt that the police were not fooled at all, and it only increased their suspicion of Leo Frank. That is the point when the people of Atlanta came to believe—and rightly so—that Leo Frank was the murderer of Little Mary Phagan. Leo Frank: “Sexual Pervert” According to Dr. Jeffrey Melnick, “The perversion charge merits special attention because it formed the emotional core of the prosecution’s case against Frank, and also became the most important constituent in public feeling against him.” So, according to the Nation of Islam, “The Frank team strategy was to stress the act of rape in Mary Phagan’s murder, and in so doing the Frank team felt they could convince a predisposed white America that only a Black man could be responsible for the brutal killing of this white girl.” Dr. Stuart Rockoff concurs: “Frank’s trial lawyers also relied upon the stereotype of the black rapist to argue that Conley was the one most likely guilty of the crime.” By the time of his lynching in 1915 many people—including his Jewish supporters—not only were repelled by Leo Frank’s abrasive personality but also believed he was in fact the murderer of Mary Phagan. Chicago icon Albert Lasker, a Jewish philanthropist and the “father of modern advertising,” paid millions (in today’s money) for Frank’s defense, but he privately admitted that he was not even convinced that Leo Frank was innocent. It was Lasker who financed all of Frank’s post-conviction appeals and orchestrated his international public-relations campaign that involved media outlets across the nation, including the New York Times. Lasker recalled the meeting in Frank’s jail cell: “It was very hard for us to be fair to him, he impressed us as a sexual pervert. Now, he may not have been—or rather homosexual or something like that…” According to Lasker’s biographer, the men with him during that encounter took “a violent dislike to him.” Lasker “hated him,” and said, “I hope he [Leo Frank] gets out…and when he gets out I hope he slips on a banana peel and breaks his neck.” The fact is Leo Frank was a sexual predator—the Harvey Weinstein/Jeffrey Epstein of his era. He, like those convicted pedophiles, used the factory he managed and the position he held to pressure little girls into sexual situations where he ruthlessly took advantage of them. And that is exactly what he did on Saturday, April 26, 1913, to thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, who came to her place of employment to collect her pay of $1.20 from her boss Leo Frank.. And just like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, B’nai B’rith president Leo Frank used the opportunity to lure Little Mary Phagan to a back area of the factory and attempted to sexually assault her. Evidence shows that Mary resisted Frank with all of her might and in the struggle he struck her and then strangled her to death. At his murder trial twenty of Leo Frank’s own female employees bravely took the witness stand and testified to Frank’s history of sexual deviance and harassment. They testified that he “got too familiar,” “put his hands on” them, tried to corner them, and proposed sexual acts to them for money. Fourteen-year-old Nellie Pettis recounted how Frank had propositioned her for sex and 16-year-old Nellie Wood testified that Frank pushed himself against her and touched her breast. Several male employees also described how they had witnessed Frank rubbing himself against young female workers. The testimony was so explicit that the judge had to clear the courtroom of women. These young girls were the real pioneers of today’s #MeToo Movement. Leo Frank’s lawyers did not even attempt to cross-examine any of the girls who testified at his trial. Instead, the defense attorneys told the jury that Frank’s behavior was: “a sign that we are getting more broad-minded... Deliver me from one of these prudish fellows that never looks at a girl and never puts his hands on her....He’s the kind that I wouldn’t trust behind the door.” Will the new D.A. finally bring INTEGRITY to the Conviction Itegrity Unit, and face the facts of Leo M. Frank’s racism and sexual deviance? Or will she let the lies and the liars have their way and allow them to pin a brutal murder of our family member wrongly on an African American man? We’ll see.

The Phagan family has no objection to anyone expressing their opinions about the Frank case, but we do insist that organizations and personal campaigns not distort the truth and facts to use this case for their own political purposes. For over 100 years, each passing decade brought with it “new historical evidence” falsely claiming to exonerate Leo Frank. The Phagan family has stated since 1982 that if there were clear-cut evidence to clear Frank of this heinous crime, we would come forward and ask for exoneration. However, such historical evidence has never come to light. Rather, there are considerable data, extensive documentation, revealing archival material, and legal, court, and government records that only support and even strengthen the guilty verdict.

Word Count: 12166 Words, Reading Time: 41 Minutes

Roy Barnes Mercer Law School (November 12, 2019)

The commentary here within was submitted by a history student of the Phagan-Frank murder case, who is an anonymous insider in the government of Georgia. The Phagan-Frank case--she reports--was a pivotal and unspeakable crime which took place during the early teen years of the 1900s. This "incognito" will be updating us on developments regarding the corrupt Atlanta Georgia "Conviction Integrity Unit" (CIU hereafter) which is presently reviewing Leo Frank's 1913 conviction and planning on issuing a statement that his guilty verdict should be overturned.

Leo Frank's High Profile Advocate: Roy Barnes

Roy Barnes, since its Spring of 2019, inception, has been serving as senior adviser for CIU and has been serving in an ongoing effort as a zealous public relations tour mouthpiece for exceedingly biased Leo Frank advocacy immediately after CIU's formation. Barnes' Leo Frank activism has at times veered into the territory of extremist Frankite* propaganda.

Frankite* is a specific term to accurately describe individuals or clusters of people who typically are college educated and fanatically willing to go to the furthest efforts to trick people into thinking Leo Frank was wrongfully convicted. The behavior requires an extraordinary amount of self-deception, flagrant dishonesty, lack of self-reflection, and unwillingness to dispassionately examine the trial evidence. For the Frankite, their partisan emotions and tribalist feelings, not facts are what should decide whether Leo Frank is innocent or guilty. They often invoke the term "anti-Semitism" when they are unable to form arguments to defend their opinions on the Leo Frank trial

Conviction Integrity Unit's Auspicious Beginnings, Dateline 2019

The CIU was formed under GA State mandate through the Atlanta District Attorney Paul Howard, who during its nascent beginnings started building a committee of social justice warrior (SJW) activists to review controversial criminal cases. When he announced who would be part of his tribunal it read like a handcrafted A-list of race-based activists.

The Real Agenda, Under the Fascade of a Noble Cause

While it might agreeably and fairmindedly seem like a noble cause to review true-crimes with new eyes, its carefully selected members apparently have very specific agendas other than being impartial and dispassionate advocates for justice. Surprisingly, no attempt was made to conceal the underlying core reason why the CIU intentionally came to being. It was revealed early-on to the media that the CIU would review many controversial cases, but that its central creation was initially inspired by the Leo Frank case, which would be given its most careful consideration. They brazenly admitted as much with no thoughts of reservation as if only one outcome was self-evident.

The Paparazzi

When the CIU's formation was pre-announced to the press, the media was front and center when the official announcements were made from pulpit of jurisprudence at the District Attorney office.

At its inaugural event, April 26, 2019 (hideously the 106th anniversary of Mary Phagan's sex-murder), press snapshooters took photographs of those in attendance, and there was not a single person present on behalf of the victim Mary Phagan, but at that event and forth coming meetings, numerous prominent Leo Frank activists, from Rabbi Steven Lebow to ADL executive Shelley Rose can be seen sitting together, giggling in anticipation like a bunch of high school girls huddling together over gossip (captured in media photos and included among the collection here within).

The People of Georgia, Exhausted and Reticent

The people of Georgia see the Conviction Integrity Unit as injustice personified in the making; undoing the original two years of judicial review from 1913-1915, in the name of political correctness and virtue-signaling.

It is important to restate, no efforts are being made to hide the pre-ordained recommendations the CIU plans to finally make on the Leo Frank case. Paul Howard's righthand man, Roy Barnes, is admittedly biased on the lynching victim's behalf, but is supposedly expected to be unbiased when reviewing the associated 1913 Mary Phagan murder trial and ensuing appeals (1913-1915) in the immediate aftermath of Leo Frank's conviction.

Though it pretended to be evenhanded for appearances from its inception, it was understood the CIU was not meant to be a fair-minded tribunal seeking the impartial truth, but one with a baked-in agenda. The clandestine agenda of CIU became decidedly crystal-clear as to its specific intentions, when its leading spokesman, Roy Barnes, started a fresh campaign of going around at continuing education forums promoting bona fide hate crime hoaxes to sway pubic opinion in favor of Leo Frank and provide justification for the eventual decision of the CIU in favor of Leo Frank's vindication, which will in reality amount to one of most egregious violations of human rights for children, who were sexually assaulted and murdered by rapist-pedophile sex killers.

Media Interviews Ongoing

The exoneration of the homicidal serial pedophile, Leo Frank, convicted for the sodomy and strangulation of Mary Phagan, has become the glib supposition and forgone conclusion for Roy Barnes in his hammy media interviews. Barnes' ongoing missionary work to educate the masses about Leo Frank is giving the appearance to mainstream Americans, that he is trying to plant false ideas in the minds of Georgians who will be directly impacted by the erroneous forthcoming exoneration of Leo Frank.

The Callous Disregard

For people outside the state of Georgia, it's obvious what Roy Barnes is trying to do with his repeated statements, which is to justify support for the clandestine recommendation at the final reviewing of Leo Frank's criminal case. There cannot be a mustard seed of doubt, Leo Frank is going to be exonerated, and to make it palatable, Barnes is tricking people into thinking the jury was tampered with during the full length of the trial by throngs of terrorists. Barnes is using the oldest and dirtiest trick in the history of propaganda, which is to recursively create imagery in the minds of those willing to hear, and that conjured vision will become, undoubtedly, plausible false illusions and easily repeatable by those who willingly imbibe the artificial projections in their mind's eye.

The Backstory

Roy Barnes is a former alt-left Governor of Georgia, and a long-time Marietta attorney who caters predominantly a select clientele. Barnes is fond of virtue-signaling that his wife is a familial descendant to one of Leo Frank's lynchers, and so in an ingratiating fashion he regresses to the mean to let everyone know in supposition he intends to seek justice for Leo Frank, and that Mary Phagan the victim is just an afterthought, a throw-away-detail or irrelevant plot device.

The Barnes Hate Crime Hoax Caught on Film

Barnes made himself infamous when on May 7th, 2019, when he was shown during a segment on the mainstream TV channel 11 Alive, to be promoting viciously anti-Gentile and racist propaganda, falsely accusing crowds of European-American Southerners with terrorizing the Leo Frank trial jury with direct threats of mass murder (watch the video, you have to see it to believe it). In case the video gets deleted as an action to cover-up for Roy Barnes' nefarious activities, we are calling on people to make backups of the segment.

Power Behind the Throne

Roy Barnes, and ADL Attorney Dale Schwartz are regularly credited with helping found the CIU behind the scenes, launching itself hideously on the 106th anniversary of Mary Phagan's untimely rape and strangulation. Her murder occurred where the dystopian-looking Sam Nunn government building complex stands today in the capitol. Before being demolished in the 1950s, standing at 80 feet wide and 200 feet deep was a 4-story old pile of bricks, formerly called the "Old Venable" building. It had been at the time of the sex-murder, been occupied by National Pencil Company (1908-1916). The building had at one time been horse carriage storage facility and another time a rooming house. Because of the stigma associated with Leo Frank's sex crimes and lynching, the executive leadership of National Pencil Company decided in 1916 it was best if it sold itself off to be absorbed into another company with a different name which was unrelated in anyway. This way any lingering negative reputation would be wiped clean.

Roy Barnes' 2019 bully pulpit for the movement to set aside Leo Frank's 1913 conviction.

While standing at a podium during a conviction integrity unit public meeting in the capitol of Georgia, he disgracefully told the audience -- while being filmed -- some of the most hideously racist lies, to paraphrase: that mobs of people outside the Fulton county courthouse were threatening the Mary Phagan murder trial jury with being strangled to death by a dozen hangman's nooses if they didn't convict the defendant Leo Frank by the end of his trial.

These terrorist threats supposedly happened, not just once, but literally, each and every single morning (July 29th - August 25th, 1913), during their public service as jurors, as they walked to the courtroom from the well known, New Kimball House Hotel to the temporary Fulton County Superior Courthouse (Formerly the Old City Hall and postal mail center for Atlanta).

Scholars of Jurisprudence Debunk Roy Barnes' False Statements Via 1913-1915 Legal Records of Case

Research scholars have scoured the 2,500 pages of official Leo Frank appeals records to the State, District and Federal Courts, and found not a single mention of any throngs of people outside the courthouse each and every morning making collective death threats at the jury as Barnes claimed.

Historian Researchers Debunk Roy Barnes' False Statements Via Newspaper Accounts From 1913

Historian scholars scoured the Atlanta newspaper daily reports of the Mary Phagan murder trial, as there were many journalists reporting outside the courthouse and inside the courtroom documenting the trial events in meticulous details. There are no press reports extant from July through August 1913 of crowds of people shouting terroristic threats at the jury each and every morning, nor at the presiding judge Leonard Roan, or the 200+ people sitting in the courtroom. The ADL website claims these threats were shouted audibly through the open windows of the courthouse, where the trial proceedings were taking place.

Roy Barnes has been caught red handed making false statements, to justify the CIU having been from its very inception a kangaroo activist committee whose intention is to dishonorably corrupt the judicial system regarding the Leo Frank trial.

Genealogy of Barnes' Hate Crime Hoax

We live in an age where it is safe to dehumanize Christians and especially White people. Barnes' vile racist defamation levied against European-American and Christian Southerners seems to have earlier origins. Barnes anti-Gentile canard of terrorist hatred was not born with him, if we look into the matters historicity. It appears the anti-Gentile canard was scholarly-popularized by Jewish activist professor Leonard Dinnerstein (1934-2019), in the American Jewish Archive Journal of November 1968, the article in question was titled -- Leo M. Frank and The American Jewish Community. Vol. 20, No 2. archive.org/details/american-jewish-archive-journal-volum...

Regarding the root source of this issue, there are thought to be even earlier origins and that it was first started by Jewish-American activist authors the Samueles who wrote the 1956 dell book, "Night Fell on Georgia".

Dates of the 21st-Century Leo Frank Carnival Sideshow, On Tour

Barnes as of 2019 has been going around speaking at law schools to promote his efforts for getting Leo Frank exonerated 106 years after he was convicted (1913, 2019), 104 years (1915, 2019) after the Supreme Court of the United States rejected Leo Frank's final frivolous appeal and put an end to his estoppel.

Violence Directed Against Convicted Criminals, Does Not Retroactively Invalidate Their Jury Convictions

The lynching of Leo Frank was immoral, illegal, unacceptable, and unethical, but crimes committed against convicted homicidal child molesters, do not retroactively nullify their jury rendered convictions for their unlawful actions of sexually assaulting and murdering children.

The Shame-Inducing "Pardoned Without Exoneration"

In 1986, Leo Frank was pardoned posthumously on a technicality, but not because of any new credible or compelling evidence for his innocents. In a strange turn of events, his conviction was not overturned and his guilty status remained. This was a frustrating turn of events for ADL of B'nai B'rith, Atlanta Jewish Federation and American Jewish Committee who had invested enormous financial resources and manpower over 4-years (1982-1986) in a monumental effort to have Leo Frank's criminal conviction rendered no-longer valid.

The unintended setback was so embarrassing that Jewish groups setup a number of historical marker plaques to re-write the history of the case with anti-Gentilism and falsely claim anti-Semitism to invalidate the trial. One of these propaganda historical markers was hideously setup at the Old Marietta Cemetery where Mary Phagan is buried, the first version of the historical marker announced that Leo Frank was pardoned but also mentioned it was without exoneration, but then shortly thereafter the Jewish group that set it up had the plaque changed, removing the textual part where he wasn't exonerated. Let that sink in, they changed the sign to sanitize it. The obvious intention was that most people would not look deeper into the matter and thus would presume if it only said he was pardoned, many people would just think he simply wasn't guilty of the crime anymore. And in fact, the people who changed the marker turned out to be correct, when they took away the fact from the sign that he wasn't exonerated, people who read the text of it presumed that the convicted killer simply wasn't guilty anymore, even though officially the state still recognizes Leo Frank as guilty. The fact of the matter is 99% of the people who read the sanitized sign will never investigate any further that is of course until the Internet became so widespread people could learn about the case from their smartphones.

Despite the setback, the Jewish activist groups privately vowed to never give up and we know this because these groups continue to fund media and school teaching materials to mainstream Leo Frank's martyrdom. Articles on Leo Frank published on ADL's website promote the hate crime hoaxes of Leonard Dinnerstein which are fabricated to invalidate his trial. ADL also created a teaching guide to the Leo Frank case, and partially funded the 2009 docudrama on the case called People versus Leo Frank (Ben Loeterman, Steve Oney).

The Jewish leaders who secured this pardon through political pressure have been bitter over the mixed results and decided instead of it being interpreted with negativity as a half-measure, they would redouble their efforts and interpret it as a steppingstone bringing them closer to exoneration. They have also recommitted themselves to continue their multigenerational agitation until their grandee is vindicated in full.

Leo Frank is still officially recognized by the Georgia Supreme Court, the Fulton County Superior Court and the United States Supreme Court as having been duly convicted, because his guilty verdict was never disturbed, even as of 2019, while the CIU works behind the scenes to subvert justice.

Georgia's Coming Kangaroo Court

Barnes' disinformation war meant to rehabilitate Leo Frank makes sense in light of media reports of CIU associates who are stating they intend to get the guilty verdict nullified at a court somewhere in present-day Georgia. Read that last sentence again, you read that right, they're actually going to try and find a judge in Georgia who will give Leo Frank a new trial and then declare him innocent because he is unable to attend the proceedings. Yeah, it's literally stranger than fictions and pure evil.

If there weren't media reports to back this up, I wouldn't even believe it myself, but associates and supporters of the CIU have stated publicly they intend to take the final pre-decided statement of the CIU on the Leo Frank case and hand deliver it to a Georgia Judge who is going to overturn his conviction, but first calling for a new unconstitutional trial of a man deceased more than 100 years ago. A new trial for a convicted killer where all the witnesses and the former defendant himself are all long dead.

The Kangaroo Judge of Georgia

Who is this Kangaroo Judge who will grant a new trial to a dead man in the year 2020 or thereafter on behalf of the District Attorney's CIU?

We call on the Government of Georgia to have him or her removed from his or her post as a Judge and we call on the Georgia bar to revoke his or her law license.

To grant a new trial to a dead man is unconstitutional.

Efforts to subvert justice for Mary Phagan continues today full speed ahead, by credentialed activists with a variety of university degrees and membership in powerful organizations, people who are willing to engage in academic dishonesty and disgrace their honor in the virtue-signaling game of political expediency, willing to put religion in some cases and political correctness in other cases above justice.

#MeToo Movement Fight Back

Seen in the picture at the front row with platinum and dark ash blonde hair, is Mary Phagan Kean (born June 5th, 1954) the namesake of the 1913 victim, she was present to observe the canned meeting and listen to Barnes counterfeit the evidence of the case. The Phagan family is naturally furious that Roy Barnes is using his social gravitas as an attorney and former Governor to fallaciously manufacture new evidence about the early 20th-century criminal case, in an effort to bamboozle the public into accepting an unjustified exculpation of Leo Frank.

 

[Leo Frank Museum and Gallery Curator: Commentary submitted by anonymous audience member who examined a major section of Roy Barnes' speech at Mercer Law School. Tuesday, November 12, 2019. End of curator commentary.]

A polite open letter to Former Governor of Georgia, Roy Barnes:

Dear Roy Barnes,

Please consider this a polite request for you Roy Barnes to please step down as the senior advisor of Atlanta Georgia's Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU)

Please understand there is No pressure, No obligations, and No Rush but, Roy Barnes, many students of the Leo Frank case are asking that you please mull an option in the name of fairness and justice, to deeply meditate on stepping down from the Conviction Integrity Unit.

As the CIU's senior most advisor to DA Paul Howard, you have shown yourself publicly to not be fit for the position. You have been pushing hoaxes to the public of jury tampering, even if you pawn them off as reports from the time, you don't seem to have the temperament for this position as an impartial counselor. The things you are asserting at public meeting are beyond the pale and don't reflect someone with the calm disposition to look at the Leo Frank legal records with new eyes, nor dispassionate eyes.

Roy Barnes, with a smidgen of self-reflection, you might see with personal reflection that you don't, in numerous senses, have the curious scientist's spirit which looks at the facts first and then comes to the conclusions. You seem to be presenting only evidence of Leo Frank supposed innocence, and never seem to share the evidence that was against him. It's clear you have a biased agenda.

Roy Barnes, you don't seem to have the soul of a conscientious judge-- an arbiter who goes into a trial without preconceived determinations. A fair-minded jurist does not take side at the beginning of an inquiry, he allows the facts, testimony, exhibits and evidence to lead him to the truth. Those kinds of mental architectures of a person with logical outlooks are needed to fairly evaluate, first the Case of Mary Phagan, especially the investigation and interviews, and the series of events which lead to the indictment, trial and appeals of Leo M. Frank.

Roy Barnes, you don't have the majestic symbolic mind posed by the beautiful women, lady justice, blind folded from illusions, with the scales of justice being held high with impartiality.

Question: Roy Barnes are you a thoughtful judge-minded modern day man who tries to be truly impartial in the 21st-century, or are you fighting for Leo Frank's defense team from the early 20th century? This question is asked of you, because, Roy Barnes, you have made your position clear that you think Leo Frank--who was convicted--is innocent and Jim Conley--who was not convicted of murder--is guilty of the murder.

Rhetorical question: With that position hard wired in your brain, how can their ever be prudence applied to reviewing the facts of Leo Frank's legal saga?

Roy Barnes, the citizens of Georgia are beginning to believe that you might possibly think that because Leo Frank was not protected while he was incarcerated in the penitentiary and therefore, wantonly assassinated, this somehow causes a time travelers loop, where the lynching of Frank, creates an H.G. Wells time machine that goes back and stops Leo Frank from committing aggravated battery, sodomy-rape and slaying Mary Phagan.

Roy Barnes, the lynching of Leo Frank was ILLEGAL.

Roy Barnes the lynching of Leo Frank was IMMORAL.

Roy Barnes the lynching of Leo Frank was UNETHICAL IN THE EXTREME.

Roy Barnes the lynching of Leo Frank was EXTRAJUDICIAL.

but the lynching of Leo Frank is not a time machine, it doesn't cause a UFO to appear, that goes back in time and prevents Mary Phagan from going to the factory that day.

 

In other words Roy Barnes, the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, does not put you outside the office of Leo Frank on April 26, 1913, with an envelope filled with $1.20 in period coinage, for you to hand it to Mary Phagan, and tell her to never come back to the factory again.

 

Do you get that Roy? Do you get that prisoner's being killed outside the law is not ever justice? But that it also doesn't magically undue the heinous crimes convicted criminals had committed?

 

Are you getting this Roy? That we all agree with you that Leo Frank's lynching was a perversion of justice, but that it doesn't magically go back in time, and prevent the former Pencil manufacturing superintendent from beating the shit out of Mary Phagan in the National Pencil Company's second-floor machine department on April 26, 1913, during its noon hour?

Does that make sense, Roy Barnes? It's an honest question.

Do you get it Roy Barnes, that the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915 doesn't go backward in time and prevent the former Pencil manufacturing superintendent from defiling Mary Phagan while she was unconscious, after he knocked her out cold, by slamming the young child's head onto the steel handle of a large drill press in the machine department?

Do you get it Roy Barnes, that the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, doesn't park H.G. Wells time machine in a parking space at your office, where you can go back in time at the last moment, and have a police conversation with Leo Frank to please kindly remove the garrote from Mary Phagan's throat, and lets think this through?

Do you get it Roy Barnes, that the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, doesn't let you go back to 1913, and rent a penthouse hotel room at the piedmont, where you can leisurely go down to the National Pencil Company at 11:30pm on April 26, 1913, and show Leo Frank a print out of the Wikipedia article on him, and all the con-artist books written on him, so that he changes his mind from raping and strangling Mary Phagan?

Do you get that Roy Barnes?

Do we Mercer Law Students and You Roy Barnes, have an agreed understanding and meeting of the minds that the lynching of Leo Frank was, pure and simple, was an act of murder?

Forget about the fact that the 60th Governor of Georgia Jack Slaton was the most prominent owner-partner of the law firm which represented Leo Frank up until his trial, defending him through his trial and state appeals. Lets forget that fact Jack Slaton was a corrupt Governor who should have recused himself and that it was unconstitutional that he commuted the capital punishment sentence of his law client. Lets put that aside for a minute, Roy Barnes.

The Lynching was still wrong.

But it doesn't make him innocent.

Convicted murderers don't get their murder convictions thrown out because they were vilely killed during their life of incarceration.

Do you get that Roy Barnes? Does that sink in?

Can you marinate on that Roy?

Do you see why you're not fit to be the highest ranking advisor on a committee whose job it is to look at the Leo Frank case without emotion, but logic? without emotion but empiricism? without hate crime hoaxes and shams about the shit in the shaft magically exonerating Leo Frank? Without the wishful thinking of the Alonzo Mann's 1980s perjury?

Roy Barnes, we Mercer students don't think you have what it takes in you to be honest, honorable and serve with integrity on the Conviction Integrity Unit.

Please do the right thing, and give it your best mulling, to step down from the conviction integrity unit, you're just doing more harm than good.

You're literally poisoning any chance of a fair hearing with repeated accusations about "reports at the time" of the jury being threatened with anti-Semitic terrorism on a daily (how many days does that total, Roy Barnes if it was everyday) basis during that 4 week trial (July 28- August 26, 1913).

Roy Barnes, Please we don't need that bullshit being flicked and flung around on TV. Everyone in Georgia saw you on 11Alive news, we saw you mouth those words.

Roy Barnes, How can you be the senior advisor of the Conviction Integrity Unit when you go around promoting the so-called reports at the time of jury tampering which have mutated over the years, when you have access to the courtroom records, newspaper reports from the time and the full appellate reviews of the Ga court of appeals, which never mention mobs terrorizing the jury on a morning basis?

Roy Barnes, how can the case of Leo Frank be fairly evaluated when you were shown on TV via 11Alive saying that EVERY MORNING during the month long trial crowds shouted anti-Semitic terrorist threats at the jury, "HANG THE JEW OR WE'LL HANG YOU" as they walked to court?

Roy Barnes, We got you on film saying that. You repeated it at our Mercer Law School discussion, but this time you qualified it as something like "reports from the era"

Roy Barnes, If you decide you are a passionate member in Leo Frank's defense team, we ask you to present the full brief of evidence to every practicing attorney in Georgia and those retired too. While we're at it, let's have the whole bar study the trial transcript, published day by day, in the Atlanta daily newspapers (Constitution, Journal and Georgian) during the end of July to the end of August, and have them all closely review the Frank appeals with the highest and best in all of us.

If that's possible, Roy Barnes, we should at least try, we would like some checks and balances here, because you Roy Barnes, have lost your mind.

Roy Barnes, lets have a state-wide discussion of the full case of LMK with all law students and law professors in the borders of Georgia--is that unreasonable (?), that the full state of Georgia, and every citizen of the state of Georgia, is asked to read the original newspaper reports from the capitol's presses, published in the Atlanta constitution, Atlanta journal and Atlanta Georgian, and the questions and answers of the trial transcript in those newspapers?

Roy Barnes, How do these said recordings on antique typewriters compare to the Georgia Supreme Court's majority responses? Where they too prejudiced and part of the grand conspiracy to conspire against Leo M. Frank?

And does District Attorney Hugh Dorsey's side of the state's case, the one presented in that very same Ga Supreme Court report filing, sift him as a man seeking: justice for the child sweatshop assembly line attendant OR unscrupulous injustice of framing an innocent man with a commitment to judicial murder?

Several sections of Roy Barnes's November 12, 2019 monologue at Mercer Law School, stands out. The most prominent being, what Journalist-Author Steve Oney, called, "The Shyte in the Shaft":

 

Roy Barnes during his speech at Mercer Law School on Tuesday, November 12th, 2019, in his monologue acts as if it's axiomatically a hard-fact that the primitive freight elevator in Atlanta's National Pencil Company of 1913, could NOT have been used during the noontime hour of Saturday, April 26, 1913, to transport Mary Phagan's dead and defiled body, down from the second floor of the factory, down two flights to the factory's cellar. The supposition of his reason why it didn't happen that way, is because the police took the freight elevator down to the said basement on Sunday morning, April 27th, 1913, it crushed some feces in the ground tray of the elevator shaft. At face value, and with limited information about the incident, it could easily be believable for those unfamiliar with the reports provided by investigators.

To summarize, Barnes touches briefly upon The elevator's maneuverability with dramatics, "Boom", referring to the "the shit in the shaft" (as journalist-author Steve Oney labeled it), and the smooshing of Conley's feces at the said base tray at the hard dirt floor ground in the elevator shaft at the front section of the basement, below the street entry of the National Pencil Company. Roy Barnes hints at this as something which tends to impeach Conley's testimony about how he and Leo Frank moved the cadaver of Mary Phagan and his series of evolving affidavits eludes to how the events took place. The undercurrent of Barnes' statements are this provides more exonerating evidence for Leo Frank, as part of a larger suite of perceived opinions on evidence absolving Frank of the rape-murder for which he was duly convicted.

Roy Barnes, presenting limited information, tries to make it out like the elevator was automated and that it would go all the way to the bottom on its own, after presumably pushing a button? But that's not how the elevator worked based on the descriptions of it. There was actually a rudimentary pull cord to pause the elevator's descent or ascent (not modern computerize numeric floor buttons like we have today), it wasn't just that the elevator cut off on its own presumably flipping a power switch when it reached the basement, the driver of the vertical elevator car had control.

Jim Conley in his testimony at the Leo Frank trial and his affidavits finally talks about how Leo Frank was so nervous with the elevator control cord that he hints it might have stopped the elevator before it hit the bottom on their descent, and again too soon before they ascended to the above floors, going back up toward the second floor. Leo Frank was said in Conley's testimony to have stopped the freight elevator too short, and upon exiting it, he tripped inside the elevator car catching the floor as he was trying to get out of it and thus fell backward right onto Jim Conley.

Surprise, Surprise, Roy Barnes never mentions these above-detailed descriptions in his 2019 monologue on that particular incident, of using the elevator to move Mary Phagan's body away from the metal room, located opposite Leo Frank's business office, to the rear corner of the basement where it was intended to be burned in a furnace--which Barnes essentially cites as a reason among others, why Leo Frank is innocent, and supposedly proof that in the noon hour of Saturday, April 26, 1913, they didn't use the means to transport the battered and bruised corpse of the 13-year-old girl to the basement.

James "Jim" Conley's meticulous details in several evolving affidavits and his trial testimony no August 4, 5, and 6th, 1913, at the Mary Phagan murder trial, about these said events, tend to show Leo Frank's nervous-erratic demeanor immediately post-murder and his mishandling of the elevator brake cord.

The freight elevator likely would not go all the way down to the cellar tray by a matter of some inches, because police initially described during their initial investigation at 3:40 o'clock a.m. that there was lots of trash in that bottom-most tray, and also found Mary Phagan's parasol right smack in the middle of it (there is even a contemporary diagram sketch of it). The police described the contents of the tray and moved that trash around, in search of clews, they might have moved the trash enough or removed some of it, so that later when they took the elevator down, it could actually go down all the way completely to the bottom. Later that morning in the presence of Leo Frank, they took the freight elevator down on April 27, 1913, in the daytime morning, when they had done so, it smooshed Conley's natural deposit he left there in the said tray.

What Roy Barnes also fails to also mention is those first-responder police officers who investigated the crime scene that morning on April 27, 1913, specifically reported they saw drag marks from the elevator shaft entryway, 140 feet across the hard dirt floor to the rear of the basement, where garbage was normally staged before being burned in the furnace, a furnace that provided heat and hot water to the factory. He uses the excuse that he has limited time, to give the audience the information they need to make an informed decision, to instead focus on the then-present and then-former government officials and prominent citizenry who organized to hang Leo Frank on August 17th, 1915, in fulfillment of the Mary Phagan murder trial jury's unanimous decision to recommend "no mercy" for Leo Frank on August 25th 1913, to therefore have the defendant be sentenced to capital punishment, and Judge Roan's ratification the next day of that verdict and sentencing decision on August 26, 1913.

[End of their response on the "Shit in the Shaft Hoax" being used to Exonerate Leo Frank]

SOURCES

 

Article: Former Governor Roy Barnes Discusses Leo Frank Case at Mercer Law School 41nbc.com/2019/11/13/former-georgia-gov-roy-barnes-discus...

VIDEO: Former Governor Roy Barnes at Mercer Law School, November 2019 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIviA9GXGQI

VIDEO (Recommended): 11Alive Roy Barnes, May 7th 2019 youtu.be/4tgKcqOXyhc

Mercer University Law School law.mercer.edu/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Direct source of the hoax framed as Jury tampering: American Jewish Archives Journal, November 1968, Leo M. Frank and the Jewish Community by Leonard Dinnerstein

 

 

 

 

Word Count: 5659 Words, Reading Time: 20 Minutes

A revisionist is someone who examines and tries to change existing beliefs about events that happened or what their importance or meaning by deliberately and purposely using deceitful, dishonest, fraudulent, underhanded, hiding information secret from public knowledge.

A closer look at the deception of fraud, deliberate effort to deceive misrepresentation of historical sources:

Censorship:

Since the Conviction Integrity Unit (2019) has been established to review the Leo Frank Case, BOOKS have been BANNED, YouTube Videos have been removed and Georgia and Supreme Court records, original newspaper links are NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

Why? To “silence the opposing view.” What is the truth of the Leo Frank Case? Truth has become inappropriate or offensive or objectionable and is deemed “hate speech” to impose censorship.
FACTS ARE NOT HATEFUL!

Is it because we are Making a Difference, and the truth is finally being told?  

Internet:

Debunk:  Censorship

The web site [www.littlemaryphagan. com] of Mary Phagan-Kean, a descendant of Mary Phagan, who was murdered by Leo Frank in 1913. It contains facts, news, videos and articles about the case, and challenges the ADL's narrative of Frank's innocence.

New Georgia Encyclopedia

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/.../mary-phagan_001_0- no mention that Frank was Jewish

Mary Phagan a pencil factory worker, was raped and murdered in 1913. The factory manager Leo Frank was convicted for the murder and imprisoned but then was lynched two years later on August, 16 1915. Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.  No mention Frank was Jewish.

In 2024 Censorship/DoS Attacks denial-of-service (DoS) cyber-attacks [malicious attempt to overwhelm an online service and render it unusable] increased on my websites in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network.

It didn't work!

Anti-Semitism:

The Leo Frank Case, Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913; 32, 137;  I Can Go Home Again, Arthur Gray Powell, 1943, Chapter 36:  Up Against the Mob; page 277-292; Guilty or Not Guilty, Francis X. Bush, 1952, page 15,62; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956; page 27; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein,1991; page 32 51-52. 

DEBUNK:  Anti-Semitism

Executive Minutes; Governor Slaton: Racial Prejudice, Anti-Semitism, Racial Prejudice, June 21, 1915; I Can Go Home Again, Arthur Gray Powell, 1943, Chapter 36:  Up Against the Mob; page 287; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956; page 189, 221; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; 227; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey, 1988, 60. 71; The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindemann, 1991, page 242, 246-247, 248, 249, 262; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 44,198,199,327; CNN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikepedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League, June 19, 2024.

Hang the Jew: 

'The Leo Frank Case, Inside Story of Georgia's greatest Murder Mystery,  Published by Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913, Preface; The Truth About the Frank Case, C.P. Connolly, 1914, page 11, 18; Tom Watson Agrarian Rebel; C. Vann Woodward, 1938, Chapter XXII, page 436; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956, page 39-41; 156; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991, page 60;  The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindemann, 1991, page 258; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin, 2010; page 61,100; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003, page 453; The Leo Frank Case, Former Governor Roy Barnes, Bell-Jones Courtroom, Mercer Law, November 12, 2009.

Debunk:  Hang the Jew

Newspapers Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta Georgian, Atlanta Journal in 1913 never reported any of the spectators shouting "Hang the Jew"; Black Jewish Relations on Trial, Jeffrey Melnick; 2000, page 53, 59; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003; 453; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin, 2010, page 26; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Vol 3; The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam, page 163, 166; The Phagan Family Newsletter #4, March 2020, littlemaryphagan.com

Mobs:

The Leo Frank Case Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery; Published by Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913; page 69,83,105-106; Executive Minutes, Governor Slaton: Mobs, June 21, 1915; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956; page 39; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; page 94, 98, 99; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey, 1988, page 46, 51;  Black Jewish Relations on Trial, Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, Jeffrey Melnick, page 15; 2000; The Leo Frank Case, Former Governor Roy Barnes, Bell-Jones Courtroom, Mercer Law, November 12, 2009.

Debunk: Mobs: See Anti-Semitism; Racial Prejudice; Hang the Jew

Fair Trial/Appeals/Judge Roan:

The Leo Frank Case Inside Story of Georgia's Murder Mystery; Published by Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913; page 63, 64; Tom Watson Agrarian Rebel, 1938, Vann Woodward; Chapter XXIII Pages 431-450; Page 443, 445; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956; page 195-196; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden; 1965; Page 253; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin, 2010; page 98.

Debunk:  Fair Trial/Appeals/Judge Roan

The Leo Frank Case Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery; Published by Atlanta Publishing Company; 1913; page 63-64; Atlanta Georgian Night Edition, James Nevin, August 18, 1913 ;Claims That Leo Frank Obtained a Fair Trial; Newspaper Article, June 14, 1914; Executive Minutes; Governor Slaton, June 21, 1914 [Slaton’s commutation disregarded volumes of trial evidence and testimony against Frank, but Slaton also chose to not disturb the jury’s verdict and affirmed the murder conviction by saying he sustained the jury and appellate tribunals.];The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frye, Nancy Thompson-Frey, 1988; page 74; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; page 30-31,79; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 428-433.

Leo M. Frank had fully and completely exhausted every possible court appeals process concerning every level of the United States Federal and State Appellate Tribunal System.

Majority and Unanimous Decisions during the Appeals Process Affirm the Murder Conviction Given by the Trial Jury including “extraordinary motion for new trial!”

Slaton, also suggested, that the Jewish Communities charge of race hatred as being the reason Frank was convicted was unfair, as it was certainly not true, because numerous other legal tribunals reviewed the evidence and testimony, and felt it was strong enough to convict Leo M. Frank. None of the appeals courts could be falsely accused of being mob terrorized or antisemitic, as the Jewish community put such false accusations and slander against the murder trial Jury.

After the Leo Frank murder trial ended August 21, closing arguments began and then ended on August 25 at noon. The jury rendered its decision on August 25 at 4 p.m., and August 26 at 10:00 a.m., the trial judge Leonard Strickland Roan affirmed the jury’s decision. Frank’s lawyers immediately appealed on August 27, 1913.

The appellate process slowly wended its way through the Fulton County Superior Court, Georgia Supreme Court, United States District Court, and United States Supreme Court, more than once. Every court meticulously sifted the murder trial testimony and evidence, and every court affirmed the trial was fair and the jury was not mob terrorized, with only four dissenting judges out of more than a dozen affirming judges. The verdict rendered by Leo Frank’s trial jury was not disturbed at the conclusion of the appeals.

Plants [Fake or Framed up Evidence to the benefit of the Defense]: 

Club Not Found in Clean-Up, Atlanta Georgian, August 1, 1913; The Leo Frank Case Inside of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery, published by Atlanta Publishing Company, Chapter III Plants Charged to Frank1913; page 64-67, 142; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956; page 36, 81-82, 142; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003; page 179-180; 420,The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 38-44, 327-328.

Sexual Assault/Menstrual Cycle:

Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956; page 15; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965, page 18, 111; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; page 10; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, page 19; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin; 2010, page 67;  The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 3, The Leo Frank Case, They Lynching of a Guilty Man, 2016; page 326; Murder at the Pencil Factory, R. Barri Flowers, 2017; page 7.

Debunk:  Sexual Assault/Menstrual Cycle:

Pinkerton Reports, L.P. Whitfield, May 2, 1913; Interview: Fannie Coleman, Ollie Mae Phagan, page 25: [Mary did not have a menstrual cycle as she did not reach the age of complete puberty and would have had some type of cloth attached to her underwear]; Mary Phagan Autopsy, Conducted on Monday, May 5, 1913, by Dr. H. F. Harris, Reported During the Leo Frank Trial on Friday, August 1, 1913; The Leo Frank Case Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery, published by Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913; Chapter XV page 80,81; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 22, 51,123.

Bitemarks:

To Number our Days, Pierre Van Paassen, 1965; page 237-238; A Little Girl is Dead; Harry Golden, 1965; page 53, 54,256, 257; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; page 158; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003; page 617-618; Flagpole Magazine May 5, 2004, Dr. Donald Wilkes, Jr.; page 7; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin,; pages11, 46, 132.

Debunk Bitemarks:

No x-ray evidence, no photographic evidence of teeth or bitemarks; Autopsy Report, May 5, 1913; Atlanta Constitution, August 1, 1913: William Gheesling Embalm Tells of Wounds on Girl; Atlanta Journal, August 3, 1913; Dr. Harris and Dr. Hurt no beastly and unspeakable mutilations about the dead girl's body, such as street rumor and gossip originally attributed to the perpetrator of the crime; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 3; The Leo Frank Case: The Lynching of a Guilty Man., 2016; page 433-434

Murder Notes/Night Witch:  

The Leo Frank Case Inside Story of Georgia’s Greatest Murder Mystery, Published by Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913; page 86-89; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels; 1956; page 186-188; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; page 128, 144, 232, 233;  The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; Page 87-90; 102-103; Black -Jewish Relations on Trial, Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, Jeffrey Melnick, 2000; page 91. 

Debunk:  Murder Notes/Night Witch:

Black -Jewish Relations on Trial, Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, Jeffrey Melnick, 2000, page 66-67; 89-103; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin, 2010; page 91-93; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 3, The Leo Frank Case The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam, 2016. page 390-395; 405-410.

Shit in the Shaft:

The Leo Frank Case, C.P. Connolly, 1914; page 91; Executive Minutes, Governor Slaton, June 21, 1915, A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; page 103, 134; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson Frey, 1988; page 46; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; page 3, 127; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003 page 213; Murder in the Pencil Factory, R. Barri Flowers, 2017; page 47.

Debunk: Shit in the Shaft:

Trial of Leo Frank, Defense; 1913: Defense abandoned theory of Mary Phagan being thrown down the first-floor scuttle hole, midway through the trial, instead for the "down the elevator shaft theory"; Brief of Evidence, Conley Testimony, 1913; Conley Testimony; Frank made hasty prestops with the elevator moments before it touched the uneven floor of the basement elevators shaft; human feces smells the moment of release and doesn't hide odor until smashed; The Leo Frank Case Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery;  page 13, 27-28, 51; 75 [Much has been made of Conley’s admission that he defecated in the elevator shaft on Saturday morning, and the idea that, because the detectives crushed the feces for the first time when they rode down in the elevator the next day, Conley’s story that he and Frank used the elevator to bring Mary Phagan’s body to the basement on Saturday afternoon could not be true — thus bringing Conley’s entire story into question. But how could anyone determine with certainty that the “crushing” was the “first crushing”? And nowhere in the voluminous records of the case — including Governor Slaton’s commutation order in which he details his supposed tests of the elevator — can we find evidence that anyone made even the most elementary inquiry into whether or not the bottom surface of the elevator car was uniformly flat. Furthermore, the so-called “shit in the shaft” theory of Frank’s innocence also breaks down when we consider the fact that detectives inspected the floor of the elevator shaft before riding down in the elevator and found in it Mary Phagan’s parasol and a large quantity of trash and debris. Detective R.M. Lassiter stated at the inquest into Mary Phagan’s death, in answer to the question “Is the bottom of the elevator shaft of concrete or wood, or what?” that “I don’t know. It was full of trash, and I couldn’t see.” There was so much trash there, the investigator couldn’t even tell what the floor of the shaft was made of! There may well have been enough trash, and arranged in such a way, to have prevented the crushing of the waste material when Frank and Conley used the elevator to transport Mary Phagan’s body to the basement. In digging through this trash, detectives could easily have moved it enough to permit the crushing of the feces the next time the elevator was run down.]; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 3, The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, 2016; page 410-415.

Exodus of Jews:

A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; page 275-276; Portrait of an American: Lawyer Sam Boorstein, Daniel J. Boorstein; The Wilson Quarterly, 1976, Vol. 14. No 1 (Winter, 1990), page 118-123.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Boorstin

Biography, "Boorstin was born in 1914, in Atlanta, Georgia, into a Jewish family. His father, Samuel, was a lawyer who participated in the defense of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent who was accused and convicted of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. After Frank's 1915 lynching led to a surge of anti-Semitic sentiment in Georgia, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Boorstin was raised. He graduated from Tulsa's Central High School in 1930, at the age of 15.

Debunk No Mass Exodus or Panic of Jews

1921 American Jewish Year Book; Volume 22; September 13, 1920, to October 2, 1921; edited by Harry Schneiderman for American Jewish Committee.

This chart shows a Jewish population 
INCREASE in Georgia of 13,114!

Strangers within the Gate City:  The Jews of Atlanta 1845-1915, Steven Hertzberg, Philadelphia 1978; page 213, 217; The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindmann, 1991; page 270, 275; Institute of Southern Jewish Life Study, Goldring/Woldenberg, 2006. http://www.isjl.org/history/archive/ga/atlanta.html

The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 339; 330-344.

Knights of Mary Phagan/Ku Klux Klan:

Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise, 1956; page 212; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; page 288; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson Frey, page 91, 104, 132; The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindemann, 1991, page 271; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991, page 136, 139; 150; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003, page 148; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin, page 107; Murder at the Pencil Factory, R. Barri Flowers, 2017; page 38.

Knights of Mary Phagan/Ku Klux Kan: Debunk:

New York Times, June 26, 1915, No Source; None of the Atlanta -based newspapers [Constitution, Georgian, Journal] mention "Knights of Mary Phagan", 1915; Jeffersonian, Tom Watson, August 19, 26, 1915 called Vigilance Committee, Tom Watson Agrarian Rebel, C. Vann Woodward, 1938 Chapter XXIII, pages 421-450; page 443, 450; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 309-320,328-329.

Judges:  I am one of the few people who know that Leo Frank was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted and lynched.

I Can Go Home Again. Arthur Gray Powell, 1943; Chapter 36: Up Against the Mob; page 277-292, page 291; Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, Allen Lumpkin Henson, 1959; Chapter 7: The Leo Frank Case; page 59-76; page 61-66; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; page 129; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey, 58, 59, 137; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney; 2003; page 618, 627, 647;   Screening of a Lynching, Matthew Bernstein, 2009; page 148, 156, 270;An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alpin; 2010; page 104-105; The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 3, The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, 2016, page 182-187, 434.

Debunk: Judges

I Can Go Home Again. Arthur Gray Powell, 1943; Chapter 36: Up Against the Mob; page 277-292, page 291-292

Page 291-292:

Judge Arthur Gray Powell died August 5, 1951. "I expect to write out what I know and seal it up; for the day may yet to come, after certain deaths occur, when more can be told than I can honorably tell now.  If he left any such statement, it has not come to light.

Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, Allen Lumpkin Henson, 1959; Chapter 7: The Leo Frank Case; page 59-76; page 61-66;

Page 76:

"I am the sole survivor of the "few people" to whom Judge Powell referred. Every reason which he had for not including this story in his book has disappeared."

Movies/Mini Series/Plays/Documentaries: 

ALL FICTIONALIZED ACCOUNTS 

Movies

They Won't Forget 1937

Documentaries

People vs Leo Frank 2008 

Leo Frank Case Revisited 2009

Debunk: Chapter 19

Mini-Series

         The Murder of Mary Phagan NBC 1988

Debunk: Chapter 13 

Musicals 

Night Witch 1967

Parade 1988-Present

Debunk:  Chapter 16

Racial Prejudice: Negro

The Truth About the Frank Case, C.P. Connolly, 1914, page 50-51, Night Fell on Georgia; Charles and Louise Samuels; 1956; page 35; The Jew Accused, Albert S Lindmann, 1991; page 245; Black Jewish Relations on Trial, Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, Jeffrey Melnick, 2000; page 12. 

Racial Prejudice Charge in Trial: Defense

Leo Frank's mother, Mrs. Rae Frank, caused a scene in the courtroom on August 13, 1913 by standing up and shouting an anti-Christian epithet directed towards Hugh Dorsey, the prosecutor. She was subsequently removed from the courtroom. This event brought religion into the trial for the very first time.

What exactly did Mrs. Rae Frank Say?

Some confusion about the exact words Mrs. Rae Frank: “Christian Dog” or “Gentile Dog” ? And the Dead Shall rise, Steve Oney; 2003; page 286.

Secret Relation Between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 3; The Leo Frank Case The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam, 2016 page 28.

…’In fact, it was this Jewish woman’s bigoted utterance that introduced Frank’s religion into the trial.”

Newspapers of the day:

Mrs. Rae Frank, Mother of Prisoner, Denounces Solicitor Hugh Dorsey

Atlanta Constitution

August 14, 1913, 1,3

Court stirred by Outburst from Leo Frank’s Mother

Atlanta Journal, 4

August 14, 1913

“No, and you didn’t either.”

Frank’s Mother Resents Questioning of Dorsey

Atlanta Georgian, 3

August 14, 1913

“No, nor you either.”

Jews Fight to Save Leo Frank

New York Sun, p. 6

October 12, 1913

Mrs. Rae Frank: “You, Christian Dog”! was reported as to the utterance made.

Debunk: Racial Prejudice in Trial: Defense

Argument of Hugh Dorsey:

Atlanta Constitution

August 26, 1913, 7

“They have aligned and abused me; they have abused the detectives; they have heaped calumny on us to such extent that that good lady, the mother of this defendant, was so wrought up that she arose and, in this presence, denounced me as a dog.”

George Kendley *Defense called four witnesses claiming Kendley was antagonist toward Frank

August 10, 1913 pg. 1

Atlanta Journal

 

Rueben Arnold Closing Arguments

August 21, 1913

Atlanta Georgian, pg. 4

 

The Leo Frank Case

Inside Story of Georgia’s Greatest Murder Mystery

Published by Atlanta Publishing Company

1913

Page 137:

Racial Prejudice

"The first-time prejudice was brought into the case, it was brought in by them and brought in for a purpose. "Never have I seen two men so delighted as Rosser and Arnold when they put those questions to Kendley. Never will I forget that scene. We did not put it in, and prejudice is not in this case. "Mark you, they, not us. raised the cry of prejudice.”

Guilty or Not Guilty, 1952

Francis X. Bush

Page 62:

Four witnesses called by defense to testify that George Kendley, streetcar employee and one of the rebuttal witnesses had publicly expressed himself as violently antagonist to Frank – “ he was nothing but a damned Jew and should be taken out and hung” “guilty as a snake” “ninety percent of the best people in the state think he is guilty and ought to hang”

It was on this note that the evidence closed by the defense.

The Leo Frank Case, 1991 [Special Edition]

Leonard Dinnerstein

Page 51-52:

“The state also brought forth George Kendley, a trolley car conductor, who remembered seeing Mary Phagan walking in the direction of the factory at noon on the day of the murder.  The defense rebutted with people who made incrementing remarks about Kendley.  One man claimed to have heard the trolley conductor say that ‘Frank was nothing, but an old Jew and they ought to take him out and hand him anyhow.’ Another recalled that Kendley expressed the sentiment ‘that Frank was guilty as a snake and should be hung….’The remarks attributed to the trolley conductor were less important than for the attitudes expressed.  It was the first time any indication of overt anti-Semitism appeared in the court.”

Sexual Pervert

The Truth About the Frank Case, C.P. Connolly, 1914, page 12, 92; Tom Watson Agrarian Rebel, C. Vann Woodward, 1938; page 435-436; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956, page 26, 93; Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, Allen Lumpkin Henson, page 59.The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey, Nancy Thompson-Frey; 1988; page 71, 126; The Leo Frank Case; Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991, page 19; The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindemann, 1991, page 243; Black-Jewish Relations on Trial, Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, Jeffrey Melnick, 2000, page 47,The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3 The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, Nation of Islam 2016, page 111-120.

Smearing of Mary Phagan:

Black Jewish Relations on Trial, Jeffrey Melnick, 2000; page 31, 62; And the Dead Shall Rise, Steve Oney, 2003; page 3, 4, 5; An Unspeakable Crime, Elaine Marie Alphin, page 6; Murder in the Pencil Factor, R. Barri Flowers, 2017; page 2, 3.

Debunk: Smearing of Mary Phagan

Atlanta Constitution, May 4, 1913; Pinkerton Reports, L.P. Whitfield, may 2, 1913; page 25; The Truth About the Frank Case, C. P. Connolly, 1914; page 11, 23; Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, 1956, page 9, 10; A Little Girl is Dead; Harry Golden, 1965, page 5; The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein, 1991; page 11; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy Thompson-Frey, 1988; page 6, 7.

Tom Watson; Silent on case until Frank conviction; declined offer to defend Frank

Tom Watson Agrarian Rebel, C. Vann Woodward, 1938; page 436; A Little Girl is Dead, Harry Golden, 1965; page 217, The Silent and the Damned, 1988, Robert Seitz Frey, Nancy Thompson-Frey; page 90; The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindemann, 1991, page 259, 260;

White Privilege; Prejudice Against Negroes

The Leo Frank Case, Inside Story of Georgia's Greatest Murder Mystery; Atlanta Publishing Company, 1913, page 54, 137;  Night Fell on Georgia, Charles and Louise Samuels, page 158, 159; A Little Girl is Dead, 1965, Harry Golden, page xv; The Silent and the Damned, Robert Seitz Fry, Nancy Thompson-Frey, 1988, page 109; Black Jewish Relation on Trial, Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South, Jeffrey Melnick, 2000, preface xi; pages 8, 27, 43, 61;  And the Dead Shall Rise The Murder of Mary Phagan and The Lynching of Leo Frank, Steve Oney, 2003, page 148;   Murder at the Pencil Factory,, R. Barri Flowers, 2017, page 31.

Yellow Journalism:  Deliberate exaggeration or manipulation of news stories to evoke emotional responses and capture audience attention.

The Mary Phagan/ Leo Frank case was reported on in newspapers across Georgia between 1913 and 1915. The three main newspapers covering the trial from July 28 to August 26, 1913, included the Atlanta Constitution, the Atlanta Journal, and the Atlanta Georgian (Hearst’s Yellow Journalism) who in particular, sensationalized the story with daily dramatic headlines. 

Fortunately for 21st century Leo Frank scholars, most of the questions and answers survived in the three major local newspapers and are a must read since the original trial transcript disappeared around 1965 when Harry Golden and Leonard Dinnerstein were researching the case. 

These newspapers also report on the criminal activity (plants)the Leo M. Frank legal defense team played to try and get their guilty client free. 

Alonzo Mann:  See Chapters 10, 11, 12.

In 1982 Alonzo Mann, who in 1913 at 13 years old had been the office boy for the National Pencil Company, made a sensation in the press by denying the sworn testimony he had made at the Leo Frank trial, and stating his belief that Jim Conley was the real killer of Mary Phagan. In 1913, Mann had testified that he left the office on the day of the murder at 11:30 AM. In 1982, he changed the time and told a quite different story.

In 1983, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), along with other Jewish groups, spearheaded a campaign to get the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to issue a posthumous pardon to Leo Frank, basing their case largely on the 1982 statement of Alonzo Mann. The Board found that Mann’s statement added no new evidence to the case. They also noted that Governor Slaton in his 1915 commutation decision had already considered that the elevator may not have been used to move Mary Phagan’s body, but nevertheless he upheld Frank’s conviction. The ADL’s petition was denied, and Leo Frank’s guilty verdict was affirmed.

The Leo Frank Case, Leonard Dinnerstein 1991, The Tennessean Special News Section Frank Ritter, Jerry Thompson, Robert Sherborne Sunday, March 7, 1982; Pages 1-19 [back of book].

Debunk:  Alonzo Mann

Special News Section; Frank Ritter, Jerry Thompson, Robert Sherborne, Sunday, March 7, 1982, pages 1-9, The Jew Accused, Albert S. Lindemann, 1991; page 254 Footnote #38:

“Much has been made of the testimony of Alonzo Mann, an office boy at the time of the murder, who came forward in the mid-1980s to say that he had seen Conley in the factory, carrying Mary Phagan’s body.  As we will see, this was not the only testimony implicating Conley, but since Mann’s recollections, after so many years, have not been subjected to in-court cross-examination, it is difficult to know how to evaluate them.  It should be noted that Mann did not testify that he actually saw Conley commit the murder.

The issue is discussed in Phagan (Kean), Murder

The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol 3, The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man, 2016; Nation of Islam; Page 453-455; 450-463: Chart of Alonzo Mann:  Then and Now; Nashville Tennessean on Trial, Falsehoods and Fictions in the March 7, 1982, Edition.

Murder At the Pencil Factory, R. Barri Flowers, 2017, page 51: “In spite of Alonzo Mann’s sworn statement, persuasive to many in placing the onus for Mary Phagan’s murder squarely on the shoulders of Jim Conley, there are some who remain skeptical of his story…”

The Troubling Testimony of Alonzo Mann in the Murder of Little Mary Phagan, Mickey Lawson October 22, 2019.

The Hoaxes of the ADL, Roy Barnes,
and Rabbi Lebow: They Lie, & Lie, & Lie

“Hang the Jew”: Never happened.
For the last half century the ADL and other
propagandists like Alan M. Dershowitz have
claimed there were “mobs” crying “Hang the
Jew”! Leonard Dinnerstein invented the “Hang the Jew” hoax out of whole cloth and committed academic fraud as he misrepresented historical sources.
The ADL’s own case expert, author Steve
Oney, told the Jewish Journal: “[I]t didn’t
happen....Jews were accepted in the city, and
the record does not substantiate subsequent
reports that the crowd outside the courtroom shouted at the jurors: ‘Hang the Jew or we’ll
hang you.’”

Anti-Semitism: None.
Anti-Semitism was absent from the case,
but vicious anti-black racism was present. Leo
Frank—as leader of B’nai B’rith—his defense
attorneys and supporters publicly and openly
referred to Blacks as “ni@@ers” in and outside
of court. In fact, Leo Frank’s own assessment of
his circumstance was as clear as can be:
“Anti-Semitism is absolutely not the reason for this libel that has been framed against me. It isn’t the source nor the result of this sad story.”

Wikipedia Now Labels ADL [Top Jewish Civil Rights Group]
“UNRELIABLE” Source on Antisemitism; David Coleman, CNN June 19, 2024

Wikipedia is the largest on-line encyclopedia and has become the Go-To source for fast information on millions of subjects. But its editors have finally had enough with the internet’s most prolific LEO FRANK LIAR, the Anti Defamation League (ADL). In a stunning rebuke of that group, Wikipedia’s editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and they overwhelmingly said the ADLis an unreliable source on “antisemitism.” Since its founding in 1913, the ADL has falsely presented itself as the world’s preeminent advocate for the rights and causes of American Jews.

Yet, Wikipedia editors voted last week to label the ADL as a “generally unreliable” source. That means that the ADL should usually not be cite in Wikipedia articles.

“The ADL is heavily biased regarding Israel/Palestine to the point of often acting as a pro-Israel lobbying organization,” the editors said. “This can and does compromise its ability to accurately report facts regarding people and organizations that disagree with it on this issue, especially non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews and Jewish organizations.”

The ADL became the world’s major source of false and misleading misinformation on the Leo Frank case, and it has made the case central to its tactic of weaponizing the label of “anti-Semitism” to fundraise and push hateful propaganda.

As expected, the ADL strongly objected to the Wikipedia decision, though the group continues its Leo Frank lies unimpeded.

Mobs at trial: None.

Unfair Trial: False.
According to the legal record and Frank’s many Appeals, Frank had a Fair Trial. There were 13 Appeals—and the guilty verdict was upheld in every appeal.

Exodus of Jews: Never happened.
Pro-Frank advocates have claimed that
“thousands” of Jews fled Atlanta, but this is
a complete myth. Jewish demographers show
that the Jewish population of Atlanta actually
increased over the weeks, months, and years
after the Frank episode.

Alonzo Mann: did not prove Leo Frank innocent.
Mann had given many conflicting stories—in 1913 and in 1982—that are irreconcilable with the known facts. The elderly Alonzo Mann was very likely coaxed and coached by Frank’s
advocates according to the transcript of Mann's videotape conference with ADL representatives, members of Georgia Pardon and Paroles Board, and attorneys.

For 111 years the Anti-Defamation League has
pushed the narrative that according to “historians”
B’nai B’rith leader Leo Frank was “wrongly accused, falsely convicted, wantonly murdered, pardoned in 1986” due to antisemitism and yellow journalism. Yet, in the original newspaper accounts of the Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta Georgian, and Atlanta Journal there is no evidence of an atmosphere
of hysteria. In fact, Leo Frank is always referred to as “Superintendent, National Pencil Company”—and there is never any mention of Frank being Jewish.

Most of the “historians” of the case are of the
same religious faith as Leo Frank, and consistently over a century they have trafficked in propaganda that has masqueraded as “new evidence.”

There have been plays, articles, books, video's, movies, docu-dramas claiming death-bed confessions, bite marks and teeth x-rays (no evidence), and anti-Semitic pogroms (no evidence). Virtually all these works claim that an African American man named James Conley committed the crime. The most brazen concoction was the error-filled “testimony” of Alonzo Mann in 1982, which the Georgia State Board of Pardon and Paroles found to be insufficient. The ADL then tried a second time to strong-arm the Board, and in 1986 a strangely worded “pardon” was granted that specifically DID NOT ADDRESS THE GUILT OR INNOCENCE of the murderer Leo Frank.

Most of Frank’s advocates have relied on blatantly false information and politically biased propaganda and have not considered all the facts or reviewed all the original legal documents, including the original official testimony and evidence. Frank’s conviction was upheld by thirteen courts and judges in his thirteen appeals. Driven by the need to exonerate a Jewish leader, they “convict” in the media an innocent African American man. Frank’s racist defense was that rape and murder were “negro crimes,” and since Frank was a white man he could not have committed those horrific acts. Therefore, the black janitor at Frank’s factory named Jim Conley was the guilty party! WHITE PRIVILEGE!

Little Mary Phagan was ruthlessly raped and murdered by the sexual pervert Leo Frank in 1913.

What evidence does Rabbi Lebow, Governor Barnes, ADL representative Robert Wittenstein have that Leo Frank should be exonerated? There is no new evidence; nor was antisemitism the reason for his conviction to warrant a “new trial” through the Fulton County Innocence Project.

Announcement:

Mary Phagan-Kean, Great- Niece and Namesake of Little Mary Phagan, donates Phagan Family Collection: memorabilia, books, photographs, and papers, August 21, 2024. These materials will be housed at Georgia State University [GSU] Special Collections and Archives Department, as part of the GSU library’s digital collections, making them accessible to the public.

 

Word Count: 5739 Words, Reading Time: 20 Minutes

Dramatis Personae/Who's Who

Alexander, Henry A. – lawyer added by Albert Lasker to Leo Frank’s defense team during the appeals process; Hugh M. Dorsey’s Jewish college roommate; “negrologist” who doctored photocopies of murder notes.

American Jewish Committee – founded in 1906 by German Jewish elites to safeguard Jewish rights worldwide. Its members would work behind the scenes to build a nationwide coalition of influential Jews who could raise funds for the Leo Frank defense and shape public opinion. Its executive committee included notables Louis Marshall, Cyrus Adler, Cyrus Sulzberger, Julian Mack, Jacob Schiff, and Julius Rosenwald.

Anderson, W. F. – Atlanta policeman and call officer who responded to the crime scene.

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith – a.k.a. the ADL; founded in 1913, the Jewish defense organization claims the Leo Frank case as its raison d’être.

Arnold, Reuben – co-counsel with Luther Rosser on Leo Frank’s defense team. His firm’s most lucrative client was the Atlanta Journal.

Atlanta, Ga. – known as the Gate City to the South, it became Georgia’s capital in 1868 and was the seat of Fulton County; founded in 1837 and officially incorporated as a city in 1847. It was by 1900 the largest city in the state and the third largest in the Southeast; owes its origins to two important developments in the 1830s: the forcible removal of the Indigenous peoples (principally the Creek and Cherokee nations) from northwest Georgia and the extension of railroad lines—the lifeblood of Atlanta—into Georgia’s interior. At the time of the Civil War, Atlanta boasted a population of almost 10,000 (one-fifth of whom were slaves), and after the Civil War Atlanta had the largest population of Jews of any city in the South.

Atlanta Constitution – daily newspaper, published and edited by Clark Howell; 1912 circulation of 41,405. Jacob Dewey Gortatowsky was its Jewish managing editor at the time of the Leo Frank Case. Over a twenty-four-year period beginning in 1876, the famed folklorist-writer Joel Chandler Harris had written thousands of articles for the paper.

Atlanta Georgian – daily newspaper owned by Wm. Randolph Hearst (purchased by Hearst from founder Fred L. Seely, in 1912); on Sunday published as Hearst’s Sunday American. For the initial two years under Hearst, first Keats Speed and then Foster Coates were its editors; Michael D. Clofine was its Jewish city editor at the time of the Leo Frank Case; pre-Hearst circulation of 38,000; just before Mary Phagan’s murder, circulation of 60,000. Under founding editor John Temple Graves, one of several Atlanta newspapers that “whipped whites into a frenzy” of race violence in 1906.

Atlanta Journal – published by James R. Gray until his untimely death in 1917; circulation of 52,000 in 1912. John Sanford Cohen was its Jewish managing editor at the time of the Leo Frank Case. U.S. Senator Hoke Smith was the organ’s founder and former owner; one of several Atlanta newspapers that “whipped whites into a frenzy” of race violence in 1906.

Atlanta Massacre of 1906 – a white riot that resulted in the massacre of scores of innocent Black men, women, and children. Incitement of the riot was attributed to Georgia governor Hoke Smith and the city’s newspaper editors, including Georgian editor John T. Graves and the Journal’s John S. Cohen.

Atlanta Police Department – Its detective bureau was reorganized in 1885: 1 captain, 1 sergeant, 8 detectives; first police wagon purchased in1886; an eight-hour workday was adopted for police in 1889; in 1896 the detective department was reorganized, and the Bertillon system of identification through skull and hand measurements used for the first time by detectives; bicycle squad organized in 1897; in 1911 James L. Beavers was elected chief, and the police department acquired its first motorized vehicles, motorcycles and auto patrol wagons; in 1915 Chief William M. Mayo establishes first police school of intensive instruction.

B’nai B’rith – Independent Order B’nai B’rith, or Sons of the Covenant, was founded in New York City by 12 German-American Jews in October 1843. In 1913 Leo M. Frank was president of its 400 to 500-member Gate City Lodge No. 144, District No. 5 (Atlanta), the most prestigious Jewish fraternal order in the city. Held its 1914 national convention in Atlanta; published the racist B’rith magazine.

Bailey, Gordon “Snowball” – laborer employed at the National Pencil Company; arrested the morning of Monday, April 28, 1913, on suspicion; defense witness.

Barnes, Roy- Governor of Georgia 1999-2003; calls for exoneration of Leo Frank in 2015; helped establish Conviction Integrity Unit in Fulton County with Fulton County District Attorney, Paul Howard for purpose of exonerating Leo Frank; Memorial service for Leo Frank in 2024 for Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis to move Leo Frank case to Innocence Project for exoneration; attorney for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis regarding Georgia Senate Committee investigation.

Barrett, R. P. – 18-year-old National Pencil Company machinist who found the hair evidence on his machine the Monday after the murder; worked 8 weeks in the factory metal department; witness sworn for the State.

Beavers, James L. – had risen through the ranks to become Atlanta Police Chief in 1911.

Beck, L. H. – president of Beck & Gregg, Atlanta’s largest hardware company; foreman of the grand jury that indicted Leo M. Frank; Albert McKnight’s employer.

Benjamin, Sol – one of five Jews on the grand jury that indicted Leo Frank.

Black, John R. – Atlanta police detective.

Bowen, Paul – was arrested in Houston, Texas, on May 5th on suspicion of Mary Phagan’s murder.

Bricker, Rev. Luther Otterbein – In 1910 he was called to First Christian Church of Atlanta, where he served for fifteen years until 1925.

Brown, Joseph M. – former Georgia governor, 1911–1913; a leading citizen of Marietta, Ga., hometown of the murder victim, Mary Phagan.

Brown, R. J. – Atlanta police sergeant and morning watch commander who responded to the crime scene. A 20-year veteran of the Atlanta Police Dept.

Brown, Tom Watson-great-grandson of Tom Watson; Atlanta attorney, historian and scholar; researcher; advocate of Leo Frank's guilt.

Burke, C. W. – Burns operative, who “discovered” the infamous Carter letters.

Burke, J. M. – superintendent, State Prison Farm at Milledgeville, Ga.

Burns, William J. – famous private detective whose firm was hired by Leo Frank; indicted by Fulton County grand jury for subornation of perjury. His license was revoked by Atlanta City Council; his accreditation rescinded by International Association of Police Chiefs. Appointed Director of the Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) in 1921 and forced to resign in 1924 for his role in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Campbell, Patrick (Pat) – Atlanta police detective.

Campbell, Wade – was at the National Pencil factory the morning of the murder; brother of Mrs. J. Arthur White; had worked for the factory for about a year and a half by the time he testified at Leo Frank’s trial; defense witness.

Carson, Irene – worked for fifteen months on the fourth floor of the pencil factory; sister of Rebecca Carson and daughter of Mrs. E. M. Carson; defense witness.

Carson, Mrs. E. M. – Three-year employee at the National Pencil Company; mother of Rebecca and Irene Carson; defense witness.

Carson, Rebecca – Three-year employee at the National Pencil Company; forewoman who worked in the factory’s sorting department, on the fourth floor; defense witness.

Carter, Anna “Annie” Maud(e) – Burns operative, implicated in infamous “Carter Letters” scheme. Had served a 6-month sentence at the Fulton County Tower jail, where Leo Frank was incarcerated.

Cato, Myrtice – witness sworn for the State; worked on the fourth floor of the pencil factory.

Chambers, Philip – 15-year-old office boy at the pencil factory, where he worked from Dec. 12, 1912, until the time Alonzo Mann was employed.

Civil War – The war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. Also called the War Between the States.

Clofine, Michael D. – Jewish city editor of the Atlanta Georgian (and Hearst's Sunday American) at the time of the Leo Frank Case. A “constant visitor of Frank” at the Tower jail.

Cobb County Times – first published in 1916 by Otis A. Brumby, Sr.; merged with the Marietta (Daily) Journal in 1951.

Cohen, John S. – managing editor of the Atlanta Journal; the son of a rabbi; “high in the councils of the Ku Klux Klan” and one of several newspaper editors who “whipped whites into a frenzy” of race hate that ultimately led to the white riot of 1906; in 1917 became the Journal’s president and editor in chief.

Coleman, Fannie (Benton) Phagan – mother of Mary Phagan and her older sister Ollie Mae and brothers Benjamin, Charles, and William Joshua, Jr.; widowed three months before Mary’s birth; married J.W. Coleman on Feb. 25, 1912.

Coleman, John W. – cabinet maker; stepfather of Mary Phagan.

Collier’s Weekly – had a weekly circulation of one million; the popular magazine was considered as important as the New York Times in Frank’s PR campaign.

Confederacy – a.k.a. the Confederate States of America; it was the separate government formed by eleven southern states of the United States of America between 1861 and 1865.

Confederate Memorial Day – commonly known as Memorial Day; the day Mary Phagan was murdered in 1913. Observed as an official state holiday the 26th day of April in each year from 1874 until 1984. April 26 marks the anniversary of the end of the Civil War for Georgia.

Conley, James “Jim” – janitor and former elevator operator at the National Pencil Company; arrested on Thursday, May 1, 1913, on suspicion; important witness in the Leo Frank Case.

Connolly, Christopher Powell – Collier’s Weekly writer aligned with the defense; point man in nationwide public relations campaign to save Frank from the gallows.

Craven, Roy L. – witness sworn for the State; employee of Beck & Gregg Hardware, where Albert McKnight also worked; present when Minola McKnight made her affidavit.

Creen, J. William – convicted murderer serving a life sentence; Leo Frank’s assailant while both were imprisoned at the State Prison Farm in Milledgeville, Ga.

Cuero, Texas – birthplace of Leo Frank.

Dalton, C. B. – railroad carpenter; witness sworn for the State; upheld testimony damaging to Frank.

Darley, N. V. – personnel manager of the National Pencil Company and manager of the Georgia Cedar Company, a branch of the National Pencil Company; was at the pencil factory on Saturday, April 26, 1913; witness sworn for the State.

Denham, Harry – defense witness; he and J. Arthur White were working on machinery, doing repair work, on the top floor (the fourth floor) of the pencil factory the day of the murder.

Deal, Nathan-Governor of Georgia 2011-2019; refused to consider pardon for Leo Frank in 2015.

Dobbs, L. S. – Atlanta police sergeant; 20-year veteran of the Atlanta Police. One of the first responding officers to the crime scene. Found the murder notes lying next to Mary Phagan’s body.

Donehoo, Paul – 35-year-old Fulton County coroner, who conducted the inquest into Mary Phagan’s murder; by 1913 had served as coroner for four years; left blind by childhood meningitis.

Dorsey, Hugh Manson – appointed Solicitor General of Fulton County in 1910, he was then elected, serving until 1916; tried the Frank Case in 1913; later became Governor of Georgia (1917–1921); partner at the law firm Dorsey, Brewster, Howell & Heyman, of Atlanta, Ga.; his youngest sister was married at the time of the Frank Case to the son of Frank’s defense attorney Luther Z. Rosser; notable for his 1921 pamphlet titled A Statement from Governor Hugh M. Dorsey As to the Negro in Georgia, which exposed the mistreatment of Blacks in the state.

Epps, George – 14-year-old newsboy; witness for the prosecution.

Felder, Thomas B. – well-known Southern lawyer involved in the Phagan murder case.

Ferguson, Helen – National Pencil Co. teenage employee who worked in the factory’s metal department about two years; first to inform Fannie and John W. Coleman of their daughter Mary Phagan’s death; witness for the prosecution.

Formby, Nina – operated a boarding house for men, in Atlanta; swore to and later repudiated an affidavit damaging to Frank.

Frank, Leo Max – b. Apr. 17, 1884; d. Aug. 17, 1915. Twenty-nine-year-old superintendent of the National Pencil Co.; president, Gate City Lodge No. 144 of B’nai B’rith in Atlanta, Ga.; son of upper-middle-class German Jewish parents; born in Texas and raised in Brooklyn, NY; graduated from Cornell University in 1906 with a mechanical engineering degree; married a daughter of the wealthy and established Selig family in 1910; convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan on Aug. 25, 1913; sentenced on August 26, 1913, to hang; sentence commuted on June 21, 1915, to life imprisonment; lynched on Aug. 17, 1915.

Frank, Lucille Selig – wife of almost 3 years to Leo M. Frank; daughter of the well-connected Emil and Josephine Selig; sister to Rosalind Selig Ursenbach; granddaughter of Levi Cohen, cofounder of Atlanta’s reform synagogue, the Temple. She and Frank lived at the home of her well-to-do parents in a then-fashionable section of Atlanta, the southside.

Frank, Moses – claimed to be a Confederate veteran; was a major operator in the international cottonseed oil business; owned a substantial percentage of National Pencil Company stock; Leo Frank’s wealthy (Brooklyn) uncle, based in Atlanta; financed his nephew’s early defense efforts.

Frank, Rachel “Rae” – Leo Frank’s mother; husband of Rudolph Frank.

Frank, Rudolph – Leo Frank’s father; husband of Rachel Frank; Moses Frank’s brother.

Freeman, Emma Clarke – witness for the defense; prior to April 26 had worked on the fourth floor of the pencil factory, which she visited the day of the murder.

Frey’s Gin – located 2 miles east of Marietta, Ga.; faced the location of Mary’s ancestral home, which was twenty miles northwest of Atlanta; site of the lynching of Leo M. Frank.

Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill– Jewish-owned factory in Atlanta; site of labor unrest; Atlanta’s largest employer. Elsas, Oscar – b. 1871, d. 1924; became president of Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill in 1909 upon the retirement of his father, Jacob, who founded the company in 1881. Oscar Elsas’s company was the largest employer in Atlanta and a client of Luther Rosser and Governor John Slaton’s law firm. Was on the grand jury that declined to indict James Conley.

Fulton County – incorporated in 1853; Atlanta is the county seat; location of National Pencil Co.; site of Leo M. Frank’s trial; location of Tower prison, where Frank was confined upon grand jury indictment, after his conviction, and during his appeals; future stronghold of the Klan in Georgia—the Ku Klux would “absolutely control Fulton county and Atlanta.”

Gantt, James M. – Twenty-six-year-old former shipping clerk of the National Pencil Company; Marietta native; member of a well-known and respected family, having a judge for a relative and an ex-Representative for an uncle; discharged April 7th by Leo Frank; arrived at the factory the evening of the murder to recover his shoes and was arrested on suspicion Monday, April 28, 1913; witness for the prosecution.

Georgia – the last of the original 13 colonies of America to be formed; originally intended to be a debtors’ colony. When slavery was outlawed in the colony of Georgia, Jews left; they returned once slavery was reinstated. From 1877 to 1950, Georgia recorded the most lynchings: five hundred and eighty-six Blacks were victims of lynching.

Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles – The Board is a part of the executive branch of Georgia’s government, authorized to grant paroles, pardons, reprieves, remissions, and commutations and to restore civil and political rights. In 1983 it denied the ADL’s application for a posthumous pardon for Leo Frank. In 1986 the Board issued a posthumous pardon to Leo Frank without addressing his guilt or innocence.

Georgia Senate Special Committee-The special investigative committee was formed in January 2024 to investigate Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis for apparent conflicts of interests, abuse of the public trust, misuse of tax funds.

Georgia Supreme Court – the highest court in the state of Georgia; reviews cases already heard in the state’s lower courts; denied Leo M. Frank’s appeals for a new trial.

Gershon, George A. – New York-born proprietor of a thriving manufacturing company; one of five Jews on the grand jury that indicted Leo Frank; a member of Frank’s synagogue.

Goldstein, Max F. – well-known Atlanta attorney, of the law firm Little, Powell, Hooper & Goldstein (later Little, Powell, Smith & Goldstein); was Frank A. Hooper’s and Arthur G. Powell’s law partner and Leo Frank’s attorney; B’nai B’rith officer; a character witness who knew Leo Frank “about eight or ten years” and testified at the trial on Frank’s behalf; was the senior member of the law firm that in 1914 represented Frank’s hired detectives of the William J. Burns Agency against perjury and other serious charges.

Gordon, George A. – Atlanta lawyer; Minola McKnight’s attorney in 1913; Anna Maude Carter’s attorney in 1914; witness sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Graham, E. K. – witness sworn for the State in rebuttal; at the pencil factory April 26.

Gray, James R. – publisher and editor of the Atlanta Journal; lawyer; after Gray’s death in 1917 managing editor John S. Cohen took over leadership of the Journal, serving as president and editor.

Griffin, Maggie – witness sworn for the State; worked on the fourth floor of the pencil factory.

Guthman, Albert L. – owner of a laundry and dry cleaning company; one of five Jews on the grand jury that indicted Leo Frank.

Haas, Herbert J. – prominent member of a leading Jewish family; former trustee of the Temple; National Pencil Co. lawyer; Leo Frank’s lead attorney and funnel for funds from Chicago financier Albert Lasker for Frank’s defense.

Haas, Leonard – cousin of Herbert Haas and one of Frank’s attorneys; well-known Atlanta lawyer; American Jewish Committee member, District I (Atlanta); past president of the B’nai B’rith in Atlanta.

Hall, Corinthia – forewoman who worked in the finishing department of the pencil factory; visited the factory the day of the murder; witness for the defense.

Hall, Hattie – stenographer for the National Pencil Company, mostly working in the office of Montag Bros.; worked for Leo Frank at the factory on April 26th, the day of the murder; witness for the defense.

Harris, Henry F. – M.D.; Georgia Board of Health; Atlanta’s foremost medical doctor; performed the autopsies of Mary Phagan, beginning May 5; witness sworn for the State.

Harris, Nathaniel E. – the “last Confederate soldier to serve Georgia as Governor,” 1915–1917.

Hearst, William Randolph – newspaper magnate; by 1913 he controlled a growing national newspaper empire; publisher-owner of the Atlanta Georgian and Sunday American at the time of the Frank Case.

Hewell, Dewey – National Pencil Co. employee of four months; worked in the metal department of the factory; witness sworn for the State.

Hill, Benjamin H. – chief judge, Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia, 1907–1913; resigned in 1913 to accept judgeship of the Superior Court, Atlanta Circuit; Fulton County Superior Court judge in the Leo Frank Case.

Hixon, Annie – Ursenbach family domestic worker of two years; defense witness.

Holloway, E.F. – National Pencil Company day watchman; worked at the factory 2 years; witness sworn for the State.

Hooker, John J. – attorney involved in the matter of the posthumous pardon application for Leo Frank, including the videotaped testimony of Alonzo Mann in 1982.

Hooper, Frank A. – of the law firm Little, Powell, Hooper & Goldstein; was Max F. Goldstein’s and Arthur G. Powell’s law partner; lawyer for the prosecution; assisted Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey in prosecuting Leo M. Frank.

Hopkins, Daisy – worked in the pencil factory’s packing department on the second floor from October 1911 to June 1, 1912; defense witness.

Howard, Paul-Fulton County District Attorney 1977-2020; established Conviction Integrity Unit in secret with Governor Roy Barnes, Rabbi Steven Lebow, and others to exonerate Leo Frank in 2019.

Howard, William Schley – one of Frank’s many post-conviction defense attorneys; former prosecutor; also served two terms in the U.S. Congress. Argued clemency for Frank before the state prison commission and argued for the commutation of Frank’s death sentence before Gov. John Slaton.

Howell, Clark – publisher, owner, and editor of the Atlanta Constitution; had served in both the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate. Previously as managing editor of the Constitution he had campaigned against the state’s notorious convict lease system.

Hurt, J. W. – M.D.; Fulton County Physician, who made the initial post-mortem examination on Sunday morning, the 27th of April; witness sworn for the State.

Irby, Mr. – National Pencil Co. shipping clerk. At the factory on the morning of the murder.

Jacobs, Jake – pawnbroker implicated in the infamous “Carter Letters” scheme.

Jefferson, Mrs. George W. – five-year National Pencil Co. employee; together with fellow worker R. P. Barrett discovered the blood evidence on the second floor; witness sworn for the State.

Jeffersonian – a.k.a. “the Jeff”; weekly newspaper published by Thomas E. Watson; printed by his Jeffersonian Publishing Company.

Jones, Ivy – acquaintance of James Conley’s; witness sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Kendley, George – streetcar conductor for the Georgia Railway & Power Co.; witness sworn for the State.

Kerns, Helen – defense witness; her father worked for Montag Bros.

Kinney, Bill-Marietta Daily Journal Associate Editor who covered Cobb County for over 40 years and is a recognized expert on the Leo Frank case; especially the lynching of Leo Frank.

Kitchens, Mamie – National Pencil Co. employee of two years who worked on the fourth floor; witness sworn for the State.

Klein, Milton – well-known Atlanta lumber and building supply dealer; B’nai B’rith officer; Leo Frank’s friend.

Knights of Mary Phagan – New York Times reported that it was a group of vigilantes formed to exact revenge on Phagan’s murderer. No other evidence exists for this Knights group, which was probably fabricated by the newspaper itself.

Kriegshaber, Victor H. – prominent Atlanta business leader, who knew Leo Frank for three years; one of five Jewish jurors on the grand jury panel that indicted Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan; testified at trial as defense witness; a civil engineer, dealer in building supplies, and an officer of the Atlanta Loan & Savings Co.; B’nai B’rith officer; member of the board of trustees of the Hebrew Orphans’ Home (as was Frank); trustee of Leo Frank’s synagogue, the Temple; vice-president of Atlanta Chamber of Commerce in 1915; Atlanta Chamber of Commerce president in 1916.

Ku Klux Klan – a white American terrorist group that emerged after the Civil War and again after the First World War; deployed to engage in anti-Black rhetoric and racially motivated violence and murder to terrorize Blacks from their pursuit of education, the right to vote, freedom, justice, equality, and economic independence.

Lanford, Newport A. – Atlanta Chief of Detectives.

Lasker, Albert D. – notorious advertising mogul based in Chicago and secret private financier of Leo Frank’s appeals and director of his public-relations effort; as president of Lord & Thomas, Lasker not only pioneered new advertising and branding techniques for leading companies but also showed how advertising could “break down social barriers, sharpen political campaigns, and promote philanthropic causes”; Texas-reared (his father was a Confederate veteran); also promoted eugenics and birth control of Blacks.

Lassiter, R.M. – city policeman; a first responder to scene of crime.

Lebow, Rabbi Steven-Rabbi of Marietta’s Temple Kol Emeth, who moved to the area from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the mid-1980s, has been one of the loudest voices for reversing Leo Frank’s conviction   Rabbi Lebow had been very frustrated, since the 1986 posthumous pardon Leo Frank, because it did not overturn Frank’s conviction and Frank was still officially recognized as the guilty culprit.

Lee, Newt – night watchman at the National Pencil Company; found Mary Phagan murdered the morning of April 27, 1913.

Lehon, Dan S. – Burns detective; indicted by Fulton County grand jury for subornation of perjury; convicted of several Frank-related infractions and fined.

Mack, Julian W. – Chicago judge; a founder and an executive committee member of the American Jewish Committee.

MacWorth, W.D. – Pinkerton “investigator” who planted evidence; an operative for W. J. Burns; defense witness.

Mangum, C. Wheeler – sheriff of Fulton County, protective of Tower prisoner Leo Frank.

Mann, Alonzo – 13-year-old office boy at the National Pencil Company on the day of the murder; defense witness. Began working at the factory Tuesday, April 1, 1913. In 1982, he made the dubious claim that he came back to the factory and saw James Conley carrying the body of Mary Phagan..

Marietta, Ga. – hometown of the murder victim, Mary Phagan.

Marietta Journal – Marietta, Georgia’s weekly newspaper, first printed by Robert McAlpin Goodman in 1866; Josiah Carter, Jr., editor.

Marshall, Louis – leading constitutional lawyer of his day; argued more cases before the U. S. Supreme Court than any other private attorney; Frank’s lead appeals attorney; president of the American Jewish Committee; noted civic leader, who also promoted eugenics and birth control of Blacks.

Marx, Rabbi David – Rabbi of the Temple (formally known as the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, founded in 1867) in Atlanta, Ga., 1895–1946; Reform synagogue composed primarily of German Jewish families; leading rabbi of Atlanta; served as “ambassador to the Gentiles,” the “unofficial voice of the Jewish community”; past president of the Atlanta Lodge of B’nai B’rith; guest columnist for the Atlanta Journal; served as the personal pastor to Leo Frank.

Mayer, David – prosperous slave-holder; instrumental in the organization of Atlanta’s public school system, and was commonly known as “the father of the public schools”; served on the board of education from 1869 until his death in 1890.

McCrary, Truman “Mack” – defense witness; National Pencil Company drayman for three years; was at the factory on April 26, 1913.

McKnight, Albert – witness sworn for the State; husband of Minola McKnight; employed as a porter at Beck & Gregg Hardware Co. and as a handyman for the Frank/Selig family; swore to an affidavit damaging to Frank’s alibi.

McKnight, Minola – defense witness; domestic and cook for Josephine and Emil Selig and Leo and Lucille Frank; swore to and later repudiated an affidavit damaging to Frank.

Milledgeville State Prison Farm – located a hundred miles southeast of Atlanta; a plantation where prisoners grew and picked 500-pound bales of cotton and other agricultural crops; provided labor for public works projects; warehoused male and female prisoners unable to do hard manual labor or had privileged backgrounds; a facility for white males was just built in 1911; “deplorable conditions” for Black and female inmates; Leo Frank was confined there from June 1915 to August 1915.

Montag, Sigmund “Sig” – controlled a majority share of National Pencil Company stock and owned a paper-manufacturing empire, Montag Bros., based in Atlanta.

Mullinax, Arthur – 24-year-old former streetcar conductor and acquaintance of Mary Phagan’s; arrested on suspicion Sunday, April 27, 1913.

National Pencil Company – 37 South Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Ga.; pencil factory which Leo Frank operated and where 13-year-old Mary Phagan worked and was murdered on Saturday, April 26, 1913. Incorporated in 1908 and located in the Venable Building, which comprised 4 floors and a dirt-floor basement and covered a city block. Among its incorporators were Moses Frank, Sigmund Montag, Isaac H. Haas, and Jacob R. Haas, all of Atlanta, and George Lennig of New York City—all prominent Jewish businessmen.

New York Times – Jewish-owned newspaper, the largest in the world, and a full-fledged member of the Leo Frank defense and propaganda team. The “newspaper of record” was published by Tennessee native Adolph Ochs from August 1896 until his death in April 1935.

Nix, D. J. – 19-year-old former office boy at the National Pencil factory, where he worked from April 1912 to October 1912; defense witness.

Ochs, Adolph S. – Tennessee-born owner-publisher of the New York Times, which he acquired in 1896; publisher of the Chattanooga Times in Nashville, Tn. Ochs was married to Effie Wise, whose father, Isaac Mayer Wise, founded the Israelite and whose brother Leo Wise ran it during the Leo Frank Affair.

Pappenheimer, Oscar – well-known Atlanta business magnate, school board member, and stockholder of the National Pencil Company; received the company financial report weekly from Leo Frank; he and members of the prominent Haas family were partners in a furniture company; defense witness.

Phagan, Mary Anne – 13-year-old worker in the National Pencil Company’s metal department, where she was murdered on April 26, 1913; important contributor to her family’s income; born on June 1, 1899, to Fannie and William J. Phagan in Florence, Alabama.

Phagan, William J. – farmer and father of Mary Phagan and her 4 siblings; married Fannie Benton in 1891; died in 1899 three months before Mary’s birth.

Pickett, E. H. – sworn for the State in rebuttal. Employee of Beck & Gregg Hardware Co., where Albert McKnight also worked; was present when Minola McKnight made her affidavit.

Pierce, H. B. – superintendent of the Atlanta branch of the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency at the time of Mary Phagan’s murder.

Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency – a.k.a. Pinkerton Detective Agency. Formed in 1850 by the Chicago Police Department’s first detective, Allan Pinkerton; with his death in 1884, the agency was taken over by his two sons, Robert and William. By the 1890s, it boasted 2,000 agents and 30,000 reserves; by 1906 there were 20 offices nationwide; reputation as an ex-officio standing army for American business, safeguarding the interests of industry. Hired by Leo M. Frank to investigate the murder of Mary Phagan. Brought suit against the National Pencil Co. to recover the value of services rendered under a contract entered into between them, and a Superior Court judge found in the agency’s favor, the judgment upheld on appeal in 1917.

Powell, Arthur G. – prominent Atlanta lawyer who supported Gov. Slaton’s commutation decision. Powell had served as judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals, 1907–1912. Powell resigned his position as judge for the Court of Appeals to enter private practice in Atlanta in January 1912. In 1914 Powell’s law firm represented Leo Frank’s hired detectives of the William J. Burns Agency against perjury and other serious charges.

Pride, Arthur – five-year National Pencil Co. employee; defense witness.

Proctor, Henry Hugh – noted Atlanta preacher. In the early 1900s he had just begun his career as a minister at the First Congregational Church, serving from 1894 until 1920.

Quinn, Lemmie – National Pencil factory foreman of the metal department; defense witness.

Ragsdale, Rev. C.B. – preacher at Atlanta’s Plum Street Baptist Church.

Roan, Leonard S. – trial judge in the Leo Frank Case; in the late 1800s had been Luther Rosser’s law partner.

Robinson, Ruth – National Pencil Co. employee; witness sworn for the State.

Rogers, W.W. “Boots” – former Fulton County officer and brother-in-law of the National Pencil Company employee who identified the murder victim Mary Phagan’s body. Future bailiff and future Burns operative.

Rosser, Brandon, Slaton & Phillips – law firm after 1913 merger of the law offices of Governor-elect John M. Slaton and Leo Frank’s defense attorney Luther Z. Rosser. Firm members included Morris Brandon, Stiles Hopkins, Ben Z. Phillips, and Luther Z. Rosser, Jr.

Rosser, Luther Ziegler – defense attorney in the Leo Frank Case; law partner of Gov. John M. Slaton; in the late 1880s had been Leonard S. Roan’s law partner in the firm of Roan & Rosser.

Schiff, Herbert G. – assistant superintendent of the National Pencil Co.; with the company about five years.

Schiff, Jacob H. – financier based in New York; managing partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Co.; an executive committee member of the American Jewish Committee.

Schwartz, Dale M. – ADL national board member and attorney who, along with Charles F. Wittenstein, handled the attempts in the 1980s to have Frank pardoned by the state of Georgia.

Scott, Harry – twenty-seven-year-old assistant superintendent of the Atlanta branch of the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency; hired by Leo Frank on April 28, 1913, to investigate the murder of Mary Phagan. By the time of the trial, Scott was Superintendent of the local branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

Seigenthaler, John – longtime editor of The Tennessean; became the newspaper’s publisher in 1973 and later its chairman and CEO.

Selig, Emil – Lucille Frank’s father; Leo Frank’s father-in-law; worked in the family business, the Seligs’ prosperous West Disinfecting Co. in Atlanta.

Selig, Josephine Cohen – wife of Emil Selig; Lucille Frank’s mother; Leo Frank’s mother-in-law.

Sherborne, Robert – Tennessean reporter.

Slaton, John Marshall – Governor of Georgia, 1913–1915; law partner of Leo Frank’s attorney Luther Z. Rosser when in July 1913 their respective law firms formed a partnership and became Rosser, Brandon, Slaton & Phillips; commuted the death sentence of Leo Frank in June 1915.

Smith, Hoke – former Georgia governor, Georgia’s U.S. senator (1911-1921), owner-publisher of the Atlanta Journal (1887–1900); Reuben R. Arnold was one of his most trusted lieutenants. A trial attorney, he was asked to defend Leo M. Frank but declined.

Smith, J. E. – warden, State Prison Farm at Milledgeville, Ga.

Smith, William – attorney appointed to defend James Conley; prepared Conley for the Leo Frank trial.

Starnes, John – Atlanta city police officer; Atlanta police detective.

Stephens, Edward A. – lawyer for the prosecution; assisted Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey in prosecuting Leo Frank.

Stover, Monteen – fourteen-year-old National Pencil Co. employee who worked on the fourth floor of the factory; witness sworn for the State.

Tennessean – in March 1982 published Alonzo Mann’s account of the Phagan murder.

Thompson, Jerry – Tennessean reporter.

Tillander, O. – at the pencil factory April 26 to pick up his stepson’s pay; witness sworn for the State in rebuttal.

Tobie, C.W. – head detective, Atlanta division of the William J. Burns Agency.

Turner, W. E. – worked at the National Pencil Co. factory during March of 1913; witness sworn for the State.

United States Supreme Court – the highest court in the United States; the last court for an appeal of a verdict; turned down Leo Frank’s last appeal for a new trial.

Ursenbach, Charles F. – Leo Frank’s (Christian) brother-in-law; Rosalind Selig Ursenbach’s husband; defense witness.

Ursenbach, Rosalind Selig – Lucille (Selig) Frank’s sister; married to C. F. Ursenbach; defense witness.

Vigilance Committee:

Watson, Thomas Edward – a.k.a. Tom Watson; attorney, politician, author; publisher and editor of the Jeffersonian newspaper and Watson’s Magazine, for which he wrote several articles about the guilt of Leo Frank. A celebrated criminal defense lawyer, he was in 1913 initially asked to defend Leo M. Frank, but he declined.

Watson’s Magazine – monthly literary magazine published by Thomas E. Watson and printed by his Jeffersonian Publishing Company.

White, J. Arthur – husband of Maggie White. He, assisted by coworker Harry Denham, was doing some repair work on the top floor (the fourth floor) of the pencil factory the day of the murder.

White, Maggie – a.k.a. Mrs. Arthur White. Visited her husband at the pencil factory on the day of the murder and saw “a negro” (James Conley) on the first floor, an observation that led to the unraveling of Leo Frank’s alibi. Witness for the prosecution.

Whitfield, L.P. – Pinkerton “investigator” who planted evidence and also Burns operative convicted of several Frank-related infractions and fined.

William J. Burns Detective Agency – a.k.a. Burns Agency; a.k.a. William J. Burns National (later International) Detective Agency. Former U.S. Secret Service man William John Burns was head of the private detective agency, which he co-founded in 1909 and of which he became the sole owner in 1910. Headquartered in New York, with regional offices nationwide, the agency employed more than 1,200 operatives. It was the sole investigating agency for the American Bankers Association and grew to become the second-largest (after the Pinkertons) contract guard and investigative service in the U.S.

Wittenstein, Charles F. – ADL attorney who, along with Dale M. Schwartz, handled the attempts in the 1980s to have Frank pardoned by the state of Georgia.

Woodward, James G. – Mayor of the City of Atlanta for 8 years (four separate two-year terms); served as mayor during the Leo Frank affair, from 1913 to 1917, his third and fourth terms. In 1916 he signed into law a residential segregation ordinance.

 

 

 

 

Word Count: 5 Words, Reading Time: < 1 Minute

NEWSLETTERS COLLECTION

*ADD PDF FILE

Word Count: 509 Words, Reading Time: 2 Minutes

GLOSSARY [Dictionary Definitions]

Anti-Semitism:  hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people; a term invented by Jews to be used as a defense whenever a Jew is accused of a crime 

Censorship: the action of preventing part or the whole of a book, film, work of art, document, or other kind of communication from being seen or made available to the public, because it is considered to be offensive or harmful, or because it contains information that someone wishes to keep secret, often for political reasons: tool used when the "Big Lie" loses its power

Clew: clue in modern terms

Exoneration: the action of officially absolving someone from blame.

Frankiteis a specific term to accurately describe individuals or clusters of people who typically are college educated and fanatically willing to go to the furthest efforts to trick people into thinking Leo Frank was wrongfully convicted.

Graft: the exploitation of one's official position or influence for personal gain, especially financial

Hanging:  the practice of condemning people as a form of capital punishment

Hoax:  deliberate effort to deceive and includes plagiarism, fabrication of data, misrepresentation of historical sources, tampering with evidence, selective suppression of unwanted acceptable results, and theft of ideas

Lynching:  public killing of an individual who has not received due process

Malfeasance: act that is illegal, wrongdoing especially by a public official

Pardon [Georgia]:  Four legal means of exonerating:

1. a declaration by the governor proclaiming innocence;

2. a resolution by either the House or Senate of Georgia - or both-

3. complicated procedure of the courts beginning with an extraordinary motion for retrial,

4. a pardon by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles

Pedophile: a person who is sexually attracted to children

Plant(s):  evidence finds by Pinkerton Detective Agency that were not originally found during investigation

Propaganda:  information, especially of a biased or misleading nature

Revisionist: someone who examines and tries to change existing beliefs about how events happened or what their importance or meaning is

Sexual Pervert: a person whose sexual behavior is considered unnatural and morally wrong

Sodomite:  a person who engages in sodomy [anal sex]

Sweating's:  someone tries to get information from a prisoner using threats or other bad ways.

Teenager: The term “teenager” made its debut in the English language around the 1910s. However, it didn’t gain widespread popularity until the late 1940s and early 1950s as a marketing neologism. The word “teenager” is derived from the adjective “teenage,” which refers to the ages 13 to 19, incorporating the suffix “-teen” found in those numerals.

Sweating:  criminal procedure refers to the illegal interrogation of a prisoner through the use of threats or similar means to force them to provide information.

Third Degree:  subjection of a prisoner to mental or physical torture to extract a confession.

White Privilege:  is the unearned, mostly unacknowledged social advantage white people have over other racial groups simply because they are white.

Vigilante Justice: is the act of individuals or groups taking the law into their own hands and engaging in extrajudicial actions against those they perceive as criminals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Word Count: 305 Words, Reading Time: 2 Minutes

WHO'S WHO

ACKNOWLEGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

 

PART I

Introduction

Chapter 1

"ARE YOU BY ANY CHANCE...?"

Chapter 2

THE LEGACY

Chapter 3

MY SEARCH BEGINS

Chapter 4

THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION

Chapter 5

THE CASE FOR THE DEFENSE

Chapter 6

SENTENCING AND AFTERMATH

Chapter 7

THE COMMUTATION

Chapter 8

THE LYNCHING

Chapter 9

REVERBERATIONS

Chapter 10

ALONZO MANN'S TESTIMONY

Chapter 11

THE PHAGANS BREAK THEIR VOW OF SILENCE

Chapter 12

APPLICATION FOR PARDON

AFTERWORD PARDON

PART II

Chapter 13

THE MURDER OF MARY PHAGAN MINI-SERIES: JANUARY 1988

Chapter 14

ADL LAWYER DALE SCHWARTZ REVISIONISM OF JUDGE ROAN'S STATEMENT TO JURY: 1989

Chapter 15

THE SECRET DECEITUL UNDERHANFED REVISIONIST POLITIVAL MARKER CHANGE AT MARY PHAGAN'S GRAVE BY THE PARKS AND TOURISM COMMITTEE, MARIETTA CITY COUNCIL AND THE JEWISH COMMUNITY: 1995

Chapter 16

PARADE THE BROADWAY MUSICAL IS A CORRUPTION OF HISTORY AND RADICAL ATTEMPTTO WHITEWASH A HORRIBLE MURDER AND PIN IT ON  JIM CONLEY, A NEGRO: 1998

Chapter 17

STEVE ONEY PUBLISHES BOOK: 2003

Chapter 18

LEO FRANK HISTORICAL MARKER APPROVED IN 2006; DEDICATED 2008 

Chapter 19

PBS DOCUMENTARY 2008; SEEKING JUSTICE FOR LEO FRANK CASE REVISITED: 2009

Chapter 20

100 YEARS AFTER THE RAPE AND MURDER OF MARY PHAGAN: 2013

Chapter 21

100 YEARS AFTER LEO FRANK LYNCHING: 2015

Chapter 22

FULTON COUNTY CONVICTION INTEGRITY UNIT [CIU] ESTABLISHED TO EXONERATE LEO FRANK; 2019

Chapter 23

FULTON COUNTY PAUL HOWARD DEFEATED BY FANI WILLIS NOVEBER 6, 2019

Chapter 24

ROY BARNES MERCER LAW SCHOOL NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Chapter 25

JONATHAN GREENBLATT ADL: August 17, 2023, 2022, 2021

Chapter 26

PHAGAN FAMILY POSITION PAPER: 2021

Chapter 27

COBB LIBRARIAN DISCUSSED THE LYNCHING OF LEO FRANK: 2023

Chapter 28

FANI WILLIS, FULTON COUNTY DA UNDER INVESTIGATION BY GEORGAI SENATE COMMISSION: 2024

Chapter 29

SEEKING JUSTICE FOR LITTLE MARY PHAGAN; NEWSLETTERS COLLECTION

Epilogue

Appendices

Glossary Terms

Selected Bibliography

Index