The 110th anniversary of Leo Frank’s lynching

With antisemitism today at its highest levels since before World War II, it’s important to recall the 110th anniversary of Leo Frank’s lynching on August 17, 1915, one of 20th century America’s most notorious acts of Jew hatred, comes to the fore.

In 1906, after Leo Frank graduated from Cornell, he moved to work at his uncle’s National Pencil Company of Atlanta. He eventually became the factory’s superintendent. Frank’s world came crashing down on April 26, 1913, when his employee, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, was found murdered there. The police allowed the crime scene to be contaminated by reporters and photographers. Frank wasn’t immediately a suspect and even offered to help authorities find the murderer.

The police suspected the factory’s African American night watchman. After he was eliminated as a suspect, the police focused on a white male friend of the victim before zeroing on the factory’s Black janitor, Jim Conley, an alcoholic petty criminal. Conley confessed to moving Mary’s body, but cleverly re-directed the investigation to Leo Frank, whom Conley swore had murdered Mary. During that era, it was extremely rare for a southern prosecutor to introduce a Black witness to testify against a white person, nevertheless, Frank’s attorneys failed to break Conley’s improbable testimony despite his four contradictory confessions.

At trial, several others testified as to whether they had seen Frank at a specific time on the day in question. Others alleged that Frank often preyed on his young, single, female employees. After Frank’s conviction, some of these witnesses recanted their testimony.

Almost all of Atlanta’s newspapers whipped their readers into a frenzied state. The July trial was held in a hot courtroom, whose wide-open windows allowed vicious anti-Frank and antisemitic shouts to be readily heard by the jury.

During the trial, Frank’s New York origins and Jewish identity were frequently mentioned as was the financial success of his uncle. Prosecutors also introduced evidence that Frank’s father didn’t have a job but lived on his investments.

After a month-long trial, the jury reached its verdict in four hours. The trial judge, fearing that pandemonium would break out if Frank were acquitted, suggested to Frank’s lawyers that Frank and his eight-member defense team absent themselves when the verdict was read. The lawyers mistakenly agreed. The jury declared Frank guilty. Judge Roan immediately ordered his execution.

Based on recanted testimony, new witnesses, and a more thorough medical examination, Frank’s lawyers appealed. Judge Roan admitted that he wasn’t thoroughly convinced of Frank’s guilt but refused to overturn the jury’s verdict. The Georgia Supreme Court denied Frank’s appeal

Frank’s trial and its aftermath were well publicized across the country. His conviction sparked the founding of the Anti-Defamation League to protect American Jews confronting rising antisemitism. Multiple newspapers condemned the verdict and supported Frank’s appeals. Famous Americans signed petitions asking Georgia’s governor to free Leo Frank or grant him a new trial.

Jim Conley was later sentenced to a year in jail. Soon thereafter, Conley’s own lawyer and the lawyer’s wife began to doubt Conley’s version of the events. They painstakingly examined Conley’s patterns of word usage, handwriting, and notes planted at the crime scene with letters Conley had mailed from prison. They concluded that Conley had murdered Mary. Conley’s lawyer then joined Frank’s legal team.

After the US Supreme Court declined to hear Frank’s appeal, Georgia scheduled his execution. Frank’s lawyers then appealed to Georgia Governor John M. Slaton for clemency. Slaton, struck by the inconsistencies in Conley’s testimony, personally examined the trial record and evidence. He visited the crime scene to examine where Mary was murdered and how her body was moved to the basement. Slaton wasn’t immediately convinced of Frank’s guilt or innocence, but commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, with the unexpressed hope that more facts would be revealed that might later exonerate him. Slaton’s June 1915 commutation decision was extremely unpopular and ended his political career

Frank was transported to a prison farm, 100 miles southeast of Atlanta. After his arrival, a convicted triple murderer severed Frank’s jugular vein to avenge Mary Phagan.

Lynchings are usually associated with the lowest strata of society. Leo Frank’s lynching was organized by 26 well-respected men, including a former Georgia governor, a circuit court judge, several lawyers, a state house representative, and a former sheriff.

These community leaders kidnapped the still-convalescing Frank and drove him over 120 miles to Marietta, the hometown of Mary Phagan. They secretly lynched Frank after which they allowed around 3,000 townspeople to view and photograph Frank’s body swinging from a tree. No one was ever indicted for Frank’s kidnapping or lynching. Frank was buried in Queens’ New Mount Carmel Cemetery.

In 1933, Georgia’s Governor Eugene Talmadge pardoned William Creen, the triple murderer who had severely wounded Leo Frank. The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles posthumously pardoned Frank in 1986. However, a pardon is not an exoneration, which would’ve removed the stain on Leo Frank’s name for having had any involvement in Mary Phagan’s murder.

Leo Frank died on the 7th of Elul, when Shoftim, the Torah reading near his yahrtzeit is usually read. Ironically, in Shoftim, the Torah explicitly requires two eyewitnesses for conviction in a capital case. Ironically, Leo Frank’s conviction was based on the self-interested, questionable testimony of Mary Phagan’s probable murderer.

To learn more, I suggest reading And The Dead Shall Rise by Steve Oney, the most comprehensive and well-researched book about this case.

This year, Leo Frank’s yahrtzeit will be commemorated on August 30/31.

Yehi zichrono livracha, may Leo Frank’s memory be for a blessing.