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The Atlanta Georgian,
Sunday, 17th August 1913,
PAGE 3, COLUMN 1.
Accused Superintendent to Appeal to Reason of the Men Who Will Decide His Fate
COUNSEL FOR DEFENSE DECLARE HE ALONE HAS PREPARED STATEMENT
Defendant Will in No Way Try to Stir Emotion of Jurors, But Will Simply Outline His Contention as to Tragedy.
Leo M. Frank's statement to the jury, delayed from last week by the swarm of character witnesses brought in at the last moment, is the main factor of interest remaining in the trial of the National Pencil Factory superintendent before the rebuttal is taken up by the two attorneys representing the State.
What this statement will be the defendant's lawyers themselves profess not to know. They have had little or no part in framing it, they say. All they know is that he proposes to make one, and that he has been preparing it piecemeal as the trial has progressed and one point after another has arisen.
Whether it will be a formal statement read verbatim, no one knows except the prisoner and possibly his immediate relatives.
If the lawyers know they are keeping it darkly a secret. They believe, they have ventured to say, that it will be more or less informal and that it will be in the nature of an address to the jury and the court based upon the notes that Frank has made from time to time during the trial.
Appeal To Reason.
That there will be little appeal to the emotions of the jurors is practically a foregone conclusion. It is the purpose of Frank, it is understood, to appeal directly to the reason and common sense of the twelve men-to outline to them as he has outlined to his own attorneys the weak points or improbabilities in the negro Conley's story.
As well as this, it is his intention to picture to them his every movement during the entire day and to represent the physical impossibility of his having committed the crime and disposed of the body as Conley describes, if his alibi as set up by a score of witnesses is accepted by the jury.
The statement will embrace much to which he testified at the Coroner's inquest. But there will be much more. He will go into some things on which his own lawyers have not touched. The statement practically is certain to form a most remarkable and most important portion of the record of the trial's proceedings.
What promised to provide a sensation during the presentation of the defendant's case may collapse into nothing. This is W. H. Mincey and his startling declaration that he saw Jim Conley on the afternoon of the murder, and that Jim bragged to him that he had killed a girl that afternoon and didn't want to kill anyone else.
Appear to Doubt Mincey.
The attorneys for the defense have not been willing to say whether or not they would call Mincey. They have appeared to entertain some doubts of Mincey's credibility. Reuben Arnold said Saturday that he was not prepared to say that he would or would not call Mincey.
If Mincey's story could be corroborated it would furnish a most effective weapon in winning the battle for Frank's life. Granting its truthfulness, it is the most definite and direct evidence of the entire case, embracing as it does a virtual confession of murder on the part of the negro.
Mincey said he met Conley at Electric avenue and Carter street Saturday afternoon, April 26. Conley was partially intoxicated and becoming angered at Mincey's insistence that he take out an insurance policy threatened the agent and boasted of killing a girl shortly before, according to the affidavit made by Mincey.
If Mincey goes on the stand his testimony will become the target for some of the State's strongest rebuttal. That and the character of Frank will divide the attention of the Solicitor. He will not bother about much else. He is content to let Conley's story, as bolstered and strengthened by the testimony of detectives and other witnesses, stand as a sufficient rebuttal for practically all of the evidence that the defense has brought out in favor of Frank. The Solicitor believes that when the arguments go before the jury the members will be willing to accept the story of the negro as against that of Frank.
After Frank's Character.
Dorsey, however, has been unceasing in his efforts to wreck Frank's character. He has branded him as a degenerate and a criminal of the worst type. The introduction of character witnesses by the defense has given him a new opening, and he proposes to take every advantage of it. His attitude is shown in a colloquy between himself and Judge Roan.
"How far do you intend to go in that line of testimony?" inquired the judge.
"Just exactly as far as your honor will let me," Dorsey replied.
Judge Roan remonstrated that the Solicitor General should not seek to introduce evidence that he knew was illegal. The Solicitor smiled.
Dorsey has about twenty witnesses he will use in an effort to destroy all of the favorable impression created by the 100 character witnesses who have testified for Frank so far in the trial. From some of them he has promised to produce testimony of the most sensational sort.
One young girl, Dewey Hewell, not yet out of her teens, was brought all the way from Cincinnati last Friday for the express purpose of testifying against the young factory superintendent.