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viii PREFACE TO VOLUME TEN

erime and anxious to punish the criminal, twelve men
were chosen to try the issue of Frank’s guilt. They
were ordinary men, shop-keepers and clerks, without
any special education to fit them to follow logically
the arguments pro and con and with no training at
all in weighing evidence, After listening to the wit-
nesses and the speeches of counsel for many days, and
aware every moment, from the conduct of the andi-
ence in the court-room, that local opinion was prac-
tically unanimous against Frank, the jury found him
guilty and the judge sentenced him to be hanged.
Then the condemned man appealed to the higher
courts where he contended that he was innocent and
asked that those who sat in the high tribunale—be-
cause they were presumed to have all those qualifica-
tions which the twelve jurors lacked—should examine
the evidence and pass upon the question of his guilt
or innocence of the crime with which he was charged.
But to this appeal judge after judge turned a deaf
ear. The trial judge told him that he had listened to
all the witnesses for many days, but was not convinced
that he was guilty, but the jury had found him guilty
and that was enough for him,*

The six judges of the State Supreme Court listened
twice to long arguments and wrote several very
Jearned judgments, but they were devoted solely to

1 “Byen after the jury had brought in ite verdict, Judge L. 8. Roan,
the presiding judge, was not convinced of the defendant's guilt. In
denying the motion for a new trial he made this remarkable atate-
ment: ‘I have given this queation long conalderation. It has given
me more concern than any other case I was ever in and I want to
say here, that, although I heard the evidence and the arguments
during these thirty days, I do not know this morning whether Leo
Frank is innocent or guilty. But I was not the one to be convinced.
The jury was convinced and I must approve the verdict and over-

aie the motion’” Interview with Herbert Haas, one of the pris
oner’s counsel in the New York Times, March 2, 1914.

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