398 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

866 %. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

that man decline to face him. And there never lived within
the State of Georgia, a lawyer with one-half the ability of
Mr. Luther Rosser, who possessed a consciousness of his
client’s innoeence, that wouldn’t have said ‘‘Let this ignor-
ant negro confront my innocent elient.’’ If there be a negro
who accuses me of a crime of which I am innocent. I tell you,
and you know it’s true, I’m going to eonfront him, even be-
fore my attorney, no matter who he is, returns from Tallulah
Falls, and if not then, I tell you just as soon a8 that attorney
does return, I’m going to see that that negro is brought into
my presence and permitted to set forth his accusations.

You make much here of the fact that you didn’t imow what
this man Conley was going to say when he got on the stand.
You could have known it, but you dared not do it.

Mr, Rosser. May it please the Court, that is an untrue state-
ment; at that time, when he proposed to go through that dirty
fares, with a dirty negro, with a erowd of policemen, confronting
this man, he made his first statement—his last statement, he said, and
these addendas nobody ever dreamed of them, and Frank had no
ehanee to mest them; that’s the truth, You onght to tell the truth,
if a man is involved for his life; that’s the truth. .

Mr. Dorsey. Tt does not make any difference about your adden-
das, and I’m going ¢o put it right up to this jury—

‘Mr. Rosser. May it please tho Court, have I got the right 40
interrupt him when he mis-states the facts?

The Covet, Whenever he goes outside of the record.

Mr, Rosser, Has he got the right to comment that I haven’t exer-
cised veasonable rights?

The Court. No, sir, not if he has done that,

Mr. Rosser, Nobody has got e right to comment on the fact that
T have made @ reasonable objection.

Hr. Dorsey. But I'm inside of the record, and you know it, and
the jury knows it, I said, may it please Your Honor, that this man
Frank declined to be confronted by thie man Conley.

Mr. Rosser, That isn’t what I objected to; he said that at that
meeting that was proposed by Conley, as he says, but really proposed
by the detectives, when I was ont of the city, that if thet had been
met, I would have known Conley’s statement, and that’s not true; I
would not have been any ‘wiser about his statement than I was here
the other day.

The Court. You ean comment upon the fact that he refused to
meet Frank or Frank refused to meet him, and at the time he did it,
‘he was out of the city,

Mr. Arnold. We did object to that evidence, Your Honor, but
Your Honor let that in.