Leo Frank Appeals: Majority and Unanimous Decisions during the Appeals Process Affirm the Murder Conviction Given by the Trial Jury
After the murder trial ended August 21, closing arguments concluded, the jury rendered its decision on August 25 at 4 p.m., and the trial judge affirmed the decision and sentencing on August 26, 1913. Frank’s lawyers immediately appealed. Leo Frank, backed by a swollen defense fund treasury, commenced with a costly two-year circus of embarrassing, poorly concocted, frivolous appeals, tinged with black-handed tactics. The Georgia Supreme Court case file would reveal the biggest and most expensive criminal conspiracy in early 20th century United States legal history. Frank’s lawyers and defense team, financed by an inflated treasury of Jewish money, used every sordid method of criminal activity to create evidence intended to achieve his exoneration. The defense bribed people, threatened witnesses, pulled the old switcheroo when getting people to sign affidavits, and generated an avalanche of fraudulent documents to support Leo Frank. 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. Each court meticulously sifted through the murder trial testimony and evidence. Every single court asserted the trial was fair, and the jury was not mob terrorized, with only four dissenting judges out of more than a dozen affirming. The verdict of the jury was not disturbed after every level of the United States legal system reviewed the case.
August 27 to October 31, 1913
Immediately following the Leo M. Frank murder trial conviction of August 26, 1913, the next day on August 27, 1913, Frank’s defense team requested a new trial. As a result of normal procedure Leo Frank’s execution date set for October 10, 1913, was stayed, pending a retrial hearing. On Friday, October 31, 1913, Judge Leonard Strickland Roan denied the motion by Leo M. Frank’s council for a new trial. In February 1914, the Georgia Supreme Court denied another motion for a new trial after careful review.
On Tuesday, February 17, 1914 — the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the verdict of the lower court by a vote of 4 to 2.
On Wednesday, February 25, 1914, the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously overruled a motion for rehearing the Leo Frank case.
The Presiding Judge Leonard Strickland Roan of the Leo Frank Trial
No Doubting Judge Sentences One to Die on His Birthday: On March 7, 1914, Leo Frank was resentenced to death by hanging with the execution date set on Friday, April 17, 1914, Leo M. Frank’s thirtieth birthday. True or False?
Leo Frank partisans are forever claiming Judge Leonard Strickland Roan doubted Frank’s conviction, but Leonard Roan the attorney was a former law partner of Luther Rosser and was just appeasing his powerful associate when he gave him false hope by orally saying he doubted the verdict. Judge Leonard S. Roan denied attempts by the defense to get Frank a new trial, and Leo M. Frank was to be hanged on his thirtieth birthday, April 17, 1913, casting infinite suspicion on the defense’s claim of the judge’s doubts. And in response, the defense backed up with their position with a forged document signed by Roan suggesting he had doubted the verdict, and they published it after Leonard S. Roan died. No real scholar who is incapable of self-deception could take it seriously that Judge Roan doubted Frank’s guilt (which Leo Frank partisans always claim), because no doubting judge would be so profoundly cruel as to sentence someone they thought might be innocent to be hanged on his birthday, unless they fully believed the individual was guilty.
Hanging Someone on His Birthday
One’s birthday only happens once every 365 days (barring leap year) and as an execution date, it is only reserved for individuals who are absolutely and without question guilty of the most heinous crimes.
April 16, 1914: At the eleventh hour, an extraordinary motion for a new trial was filed, and death sentence on Leo M. Frank’s thirtieth birthday was stayed.
April 22, 1914: Judge B. H Hill, former chief justice of the Court of Appeals, who had succeeded to the judgeship of Fulton Superior Court, denied the motion for a new trial.
April 25, 1914: The day before the anniversary of Mary Phagan’s death, Frank’s sanity was examined and he was declared sane.
Motion to Set the Verdict Aside as a Nullity
Beginning in June 1914, Frank’s defense appealed to the Fulton County Superior Court to set aside the guilty verdict. Fulton County Superior Court denied the appeal, as did the Georgia Supreme Court (December 1914).
November 14, 1914: The Georgia Supreme Court again denied a new trial.
November 18, 1914: The Georgia Supreme Court refused a writ of error.
November 23, 1914: Mr. Justice Lamar of the Supreme Court of the United States refused a writ of error.
25 November 1914 – Mr. Justice Holmes of the United States Supreme Court, also refused a writ. 7 December 1914, the full bench of the United States Supreme Court refused a writ of error.
9 December 1914, Frank was re-sentenced to death to hang on January 22, 1915.
21 December 1914 – United States District Judge W. T. Newman of Georgia, refused a writ of habeas Corpus.
28 December 1914 – Mr. Justice Lamar granted an appeal and certificate of reasonable doubt to the United States Supreme Court.
15 April 1915 – the Supreme Court of the United States voted 4 to 2, with Mr. Justices Holmes and Hughes dissenting, dismissed the appeal.
Ultimately 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.
There was only one option left: Executive Clemency from the Gubernatorial level of the Great Georgia State, but before that could happen, the Georgia Prison Commission would have to review the case.
Georgia Prison Commission Division
As five courts upheld the original decision of the jury in Leo Frank’s case by not disturbing their verdict, Frank then applied for clemency with the Georgia Prison Commission to commute his sentence from death to life in prison.
9 June 1915 – the State Prison Commission submitted a “divided” 2 to 1 report to Governor Slaton, Commissioners Davison and Rainey voting against commutation and Paterson voted for commutation. Leo Frank’s application for recommending clemency by the Prison Commission was denied.
During the two Year Appeals Process, The National Letter Writing Campaign and Emotional Appeals Process Was in Full Force
With every possible court appeal fully exhausted, Leo M. Frank’s last hope was utilizing the full extent of his 2 year old and growing flush bankroll from his legal defense fund which was made possible in part by advertising magnate Albert D. Lasker and newspaper mogul Adolph S. Ochs the owner of the New York Times Powerhouse. With a swollen treasury of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the culmination of a vast 2 year political bribery and manipulation machine reaching its crescendo, it had penetrated every major city across the United States and even some major cities throughout Europe. As a result the Governor of Georgia had been flooded with more than 100,000 letters in support of Leo M. Frank from people who never actually read the official trial record of the Leo Frank case, which included all the material facts, testimony and evidence. Even less in number of these 100,000 emotional appeal writers were individuals who had read the Georgia Supreme Court case file on Leo Frank.
Criminal Governor
Lastly, with absolutely no more court appeal options left for Leo Frank and the Prison Commission denying his request for clemency, there was only one last option, a commutation by the corrupt Governor of Georgia, John M. Slaton. Frank applied to Governor John M. Slaton for Executive Clemency for the ultimate betrayal of the law and people.
Last Hope: 31 May 1915
Because Frank’s plea for commutation of sentence to life imprisonment was heard before the State Prison Commission and denied, Frank had one last hope with the Governor of the State of Georgia, John Marshall Slaton who was in office from June 28, 1913 to June 26, 1915. Slaton would save the life of Leo Frank at the eleventh hour, as Frank was on Death Row registered to be lynched on June 22nd 1915 by Sheriff Mangum.
Re-raising all in with a diamond royal flush
Flash back to well before the dramatic soap opera of the eleventh hour on the infamous day of June 21st 1915, the treacherous and criminal Governor of Georgia, John M. Slaton, was made a senior law partner in the very firm representing and defending Leo M. Frank at his July 28th 1913 to August 26th murder trial and APPEALS 1913 and 1914. The lawfirm was called: Rosser, Brandon, Slaton & Phillips. The Lawfirm was a legal and political powerhouse for its time making an unheard of 6 figures a year. Rosser was the invincible truth that money talks and bullshit walks when he engineered with the Jewish Elites Treasury and political network, the clemency of Leo Frank. John Marshall Slaton sold out clemency likely for a hefty sum of greenbacks on top of being made senior law partner with Rosser and Brandons powerful legal-political borg. When you put together a team of powerful lawyers and politicians you have the ultimate machine for getting things done.
John Marshall Slaton, Clemency, Commuted Leo M. Frank’s death sentence to life in prison.June 21st 1915, The 11th Hour.
On June 21 1915, one day before Leo M. Frank was to be hanged to death, John M. Slaton, when at the exit as an outgoing Governor of Georgia on June 25, 1913, in an absolutely gross conflict of interest, commuted the death sentence of Leo M. Frank to life in prison. The clemency was based on a half-baked hokey commutation order that insulted the intelligence of the elite of Georgia, Southerners, Legal Scholars, Judges, Lawyers and the people of the United States of America and all of Western Civilization, when the commutation was compared against the dry leaves of the 1913 Brief of Evidence. John M. Slaton, Governor of the State of Georgia Betrays the People.
A commutation hearing was held in Atlanta on June 12-16, 1915. Representing Leo Frank were William M. Howard of Augusta, Manning J. Yeomans of Dawson, “Harry” (Pierre Van Paasen, 1964) Henry A. Alexander and Leonard Haas of Atlanta speaking for the defense. On June 21, 1915, just six days before Nathaniel Edwin Harris, the newly elected governor, was to take office, and one day before Frank was scheduled to hang (June 22 1915), Slaton commuted Frank’s death sentence to life in prison. There was public outrage, primarily because John M. Slaton, was a law partner and business associate in the law firm hired by Leo Frank, making Leo Frank Slaton’s client and because Slaton in a gross conflict of interest had betrayed the constitution and his oath of office.
The Southern population ascended to boiling crescendos of rage and were indignantly furious to a fevered pitch at the insolence of the clemency decision made on behalf of Leo M. Frank, especially after every level of the United States Legal System had meticulously reviewed the trial and upheld the evidence supporting the conviction, stating Leo Frank had a fair trial and the evidence was sufficient to convict him.
“More than 13 Judges Affirmed 13 Petite Jurors”
More than a dozen judges had affirmed the legitimacy of the murder conviction by the evidence and they certainly didn’t miss the fact Leo Frank had made a near confession on August 18, 1913, between 2:00 PM and 6:00PM, when Leo Frank told the Jury he made an unconscious bathroom visit inside the metal room during the time Phagan was murdered there.
John M. Slaton, feigned moral and emotional consternation, saying: “I can endure misconstruction, abuse and condemnation,” Slaton said, “but I cannot stand the constant companionship of an accusing conscience which would remind me that I, as governor of Georgia, failed to do what I thought to be right…. [F]eeling as I do about this case, I would be a murderer if I allowed this man to hang. It may mean that I must live in obscurity the rest of my days, but I would rather be plowing in a field for the rest of my life than to feel that I had that blood on my hands.”[1]
Slaton’s commutation disregarded volumes of trial evidence and testimony against Frank, but Slaton also chose to not disturb the Jury’s verdict and in a sly and underhanded sort of way affirmed the murder conviction by saying he sustained the Jury and Appellate Tribunals.
The Jewish Smear, Defamation, Blood Libel and Slander: Anti-Semitism.
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. In order to protect Leo Frank, he was transferred from Fulton Tower in Atlanta to the prison farm outside Milledgeville.