Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Vigilantes: Episode 4

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

The heat in the Atlanta courtroom was sweltering and unbearable, as the trial against Leo Frank began. A Black man was testifying against a white man, which was nearly unheard of in the Jim Crow south. And the evidence against this man was mounting… A suspect who was at the murder scene, and continued to lie to the police. Join us for part four of this seven-episode series, The Vigilantes.

It's August 1913, and we are still sweltering in an Atlanta courtroom waiting for a breeze to drift through the open windows to cool off the 250 people crammed together inside. There are days when this courtroom reaches 91 degrees, and people are fanning themselves with whatever they could find. Men were doing something you wouldn't normally see in a 1913 courtroom. taking their suit jackets off. The judge made a little joke saying, Lawyers must wear coats. If I let them go in shirt sleeves, they'd feel so comfortable. This trial might never end. The cooling breezes seemed determined to avoid the courtroom, but the threats and intimidation shouted by the crowd outside always seemed to find their way in.

While more than 200 people testified during Leo Frank's trial, there was one who threatened his case more than any other. And there was something else unusual happening in that courtroom, something more than just men in their shirt sleeves. A black man was called to the stand to testify against a white man. In 1913, Georgia, it was nearly unhundred. heard of. And after this trial, Atlanta would never be the same. I'm Sharon McMahon, and this is the preamble podcast. If you're thinking there's no way that affidavits and testimony from a black man could hold weight against a white man in the Jim Crow South, it's understandable. There are few examples of this happening, though there were a handful of instances, including formerly enslaved people in Georgia,

filing lawsuits against white citizens, but those really led to any kind of conviction or consequences. A story in the Georgian summed it up saying, A white man is on trial, his life hangs on the words of a Negro. And the South listens to the Negro's words. But the South has not thus suddenly forgotten the fact that Negro evidence is as slight as tissue-papers. paper. The South has not forgotten that when a white man's word is brought against a Negro's word, there is no question as to the winner. The person testifying against Leo is a man named Jim Conley, who did odd jobs around the pencil factory. He was seen rinsing a red stain out of a shirt on

the weekend Mary was murdered and lied to the police about being able to read and write. Collin claimed that Leo forced him to help cover up Mary's murder. But maybe you're thinking there's some pretty damning evidence against Conley, right? Shouldn't that be a factor here? Why was no one pursuing a case against him? It turns out that even while Leo's trial continued, Conley's own murder case was being sent to a grand jury to decide if he should also be indicted for Mary's killing. cases are usually brought to grand juries by prosecutors, not defense attorneys. But the prosecuting attorney in Leo's case definitely did not want Conley indicted because it would weaken their case against Leo. And because the grand jury had all new appointments, so these were not the same people who had indicted Leo.

Leo's lawyers lobbied the members of the grand jury to hear the case against Conley. And the foreman agreed with them so strongly that he even, visited the prosecuting attorney and asked him to call the grand jury into session. Remember, Jim Conley's name had not even come up in the grand jury's hearing about Leo Frank, so all of the evidence against Conley was new. It was already remarkable for a grand jury foreman to ask a prosecutor to call a session, but then something even more remarkable happened. The prosecutor stood his ground and said no, so that the grand jury foreman called the session himself.

According to historian Steve Oney, this was the first time in Fulton County history that a grand jury heard a case against the wishes of prosecutors. But the grand jury did not indict Jim Conley, ultimately because the prosecuting attorney argued that it would hurt his case against Leo Frank. And just a short time later,

Conley became the star witness in Lincoln. Leo Frank's trial. How is this possible? Jim Conley had three things working in his favor. One, police were desperate for a final arrest and conviction. The pressure from the constant newspaper stories was intense. Two, a man named William Smith. And three, Leo Frank was Jewish. The police investigation was rocky in terms of collecting and keeping track of evidence, or investigating the evidence they did have, or asking what we might consider to be the right questions. We know that they brought a reporter with them when they first saw Mary's body in the factory basement. We also know that they never restricted access to the crime scene.

They allowed the murder notes to walk out of the police. stationed in the hands of a journalist, and they lost or never investigated other evidence, like pieces of the bloody basement door or the pile of human waste found in the factory basement. But we also need to note that in 1913, the police didn't have access to or even knowledge of the procedures and technologies that are common today. It had now been more than three months since Mary Fagan's body was found in the pencil factory basement, and the newspapers are printing stories about the case every single day, often in multiple editions. Police were feeling the pressure.

A couple of weeks after Mary's murder, an Atlanta newspaper published a cartoon on the front page, showing a statuesque woman holding a paper saying, Mary Fagan murder. The woman is pointing at the door to the detective's office with a thought bubble saying, I wonder if they're all asleep in there. Criticism of the police was intense, so of course they were eager to wrap up this case and get the spotlight off of their own mistakes. Then there's William Smith, the second thing Jim Conley had working in his favor.

William Smith was a young white lawyer who had dedicated to, his career to representing black clients, including fighting for their civil rights in a system designed to work against them. Smith was hired by the Atlanta Georgian newspaper to work as Conley's lawyer. These types of third-party arrangements were not that unusual for the time. A newspaper like the Georgian would want to hire one of the lawyers for a big case so they could get special access to information throughout the trial. So for $40, William Smith took the case, and his instinct and experience told him to protect Jim Conley from the newshounds at the Georgian and other papers who would surely sacrifice Conley's well-being for a good story. Smith realized pretty quickly that taking money from a newspaper was a conflict of interest and could hurt his client,

so he made arrangements for his fee to be paid instead by the first congregational church, a powerful black church in Atlanta. Smith also wanted to protect Conley from the police, from lawyers, from judges, and from the jury, who history showed were more likely to convict this black mouth. than any white person. It was Smith who defended Conley in the grand jury hearing, convincing them not to indict in spite of new evidence like an insurance salesman who claimed Conley told him that he had murdered a girl on April 26th. Smith went on to argue that Leo Frank's prosecutors were noble warriors fighting brains, money, and influence, and that Leo's silence and Conley's willingness to talk, clearly showed Conley's innocence. And yet even for William Smith,

Conley's words were becoming a problem. No one could make Conley stop talking to reporters, to curious visitors, or even to fellow inmates. He talked about everything from feeling compelled by God to tell the truth to complaining because Leo hadn't paid him for helping hide Mary's body. William Smith worried that Conley's statements would incriminate him or be reinterpreted by those who wanted to see a black man hang. Prosecuting attorneys worried that Conley's statements, especially given the evidence piling up against him, would ruin the case they were building against Leo Frank. So the lawyers came to an agreement. They would move Conley to a jail cell in police headquarters where he could be watched more closely and access to his. him would be more restricted. Still, there was considerable evidence, potentially pointing to Conley as the murderer. He was seen washing red stains out of his shirt. He lied about being at the

factory on the day Mary was killed. He lied about being able to read and write. His handwriting and spelling were both similar to the writing on the murder notes. A witness claimed he saw Conley run after Mary. Conley's own story changed multiple times. You may be asking at this point why no one is talking about dropping charges against Leo, but Conley had a third advantage. Leo Frank was Jewish. The South fought a civil war to maintain the barbaric practice of enslaving Africans, claiming that enslavement was the only way to maintain their agricultural practices. and economy. But now industrialization was taking over with factories replacing farms and immigrants arriving to work in those factories. Georgians saw their way of life threatened once again.

So when it came down to a black man from Georgia, against a Jewish man from New York, the black man suddenly became a child of the South, a local man at risk of of losing everything against the threatening stranger coming from the north. Conley represented traditional Georgia, while Leo represented everything that threatened those traditions. I know it can be hard to wrap your head around how a southern state could twist its logic enough to uphold a black man's word over a white man's word, when their entire history showed that they were willing to go to war to keep black people down. Put simply, Conley was someone that Georgians in power felt they could manipulate and control. There was no danger that he would get too powerful.

Leo Frank, on the other hand, was a well-off man. He was a Yankee Jew, an extreme outsider, who they felt threatened their very way of life. You've heard the phrase divide and conquer? It's not just a phrase, but a strategy used. all over the world for centuries to pit two groups against each other so that a third group doesn't have to fight either one. Well-known academic and black writer, W.E.B. Du Bois, who lived in Atlanta at the time of Leo's trial, wrote that Jews had, quote, in them, all that slyness, that lack of straightforward open-heartedness that goes straight against me.

Du Bois later came to the realization that his beliefs about Jews were wrong, but his statement reveals that anti-Semitism was incredibly common towards Jewish people at the time. Even church leaders were arguing that a black man's blood would not be enough to pay for this horrible dishonor to a white girl. A Baptist pastor in the church that Mary Fagin's family attended later said, my feelings were to the effect that this one old negro would be a poor atonement for the life of this innocent girl. But when police arrested a Jew and a Yankee Jew at that, all of this inborn prejudice against Jews rose up in a feeling of satisfaction that here would be a victim worthy to pay for that crime. And let's not forget what people waiting outside were yelling through the windows of the courtroom. Hang that chew or we'll hang you.

Do you ever wish you could ask nosy questions about people's money? I have $729.71 in my bank account. We bought a $1.3 million house on a $350,000 income. On the podcast, What We Spend, we ask those questions. It's a show about money and all the feelings that come with spending it. I want to be the kind of person who can just take care of the people in my life. Listen to what we spend, an Odyssey Original, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Prosecuting attorneys wanted to legitimize any evidence against Leo.

And William Smith wanted to protect his client, Jim Conley. Both took advantage of anti-Semitism in order to achieve their goals. For all of these reasons, Jim Conley was taken. very seriously when he took the stand. William Smith made sure Conley had a shave, a haircut, and a new suit for his court appearance. And then, once Conley did take the stand, his story changed again. Now Conley claimed he had seen Mary go into the pencil factory on the day she died, and a few minutes later, he'd seen another factory girl.

If that was true, the two girls would have bumped into each other on the stairs. But the other factory girl said she never saw Mary that day. Conley also said he heard screams coming from the second floor. But he stayed outside waiting for Leo's whistle. He added a bit about Leo later telling him to burn the body in the basement but claimed he had been too frightened to make the fire in the basement and didn't follow through with the plan. Finally, Conley added that Leo had said to him,

I wanted to be with that little girl, and she refused me, and I struck her. And I guess I struck her too hard, and she fell and hit her head against something. And I don't know how bad she got hurt. Of course, you know, I ain't built like other men. Not being, quote, unquote, built like other men has been interpreted by historian and author Steve only as an anti-Semitic misrepresentation of the circumcision ritual. Conley also claimed he had seen Leo involved in other compromising situations, situations which were not only considered a moral perversion, but also they were a capital offense in Georgia at the time. So in Conley's one short

statement about not being built like other men, what he was saying to the courtroom was that Leo was Jewish and therefore he was deformed and a lawbreaker and perverted. The prosecution needed the jury to believe that Leo was what they called a pervert, swooping into Atlanta to take advantage of young girls with total disregard for their honor or their lives. Reminding the jury that Leo was Jewish and claiming he had been found in these compromising situations, with women was enough to do that. None of these things were spoken outright in the courtroom, even though people undoubtedly read between the lines

and understood Conley's message fully. Leo's lawyers could not respond to claims that hadn't technically been said, so there were no counter-arguments to be made. Leo's attorneys later tried to get this part of Conley's testimony struck from the record on grounds that it was among other things, in admissible evidence, because at the time a person couldn't be tried for more than one crime at a time. The judge was not convinced. With the jury out of the room, the judge said that Conley's testimony about Leo's alleged perversion would stay on the court record.

Onlookers in the courtroom responded to the judge's ruling by shouting, clapping, clapping, and stomping to show their approval of the decision. And this kind of uproar could have led to a mistrial if the jury was present. But since they weren't, there were no grounds for the defense to ask for a mistrial. Leo's lawyers no doubt hope that since the jury hadn't been in the courtroom, they would not be influenced by this tumultuous joy over a decision so clearly in favor of the prosecution. The jury was still in the building, and with nearly 250 people, clamoring in another room and hundreds of people celebrating outside, it's hard to believe they didn't hear and understand what had happened. Clearly, Atlanta was turning against Leo Frank.

Leo told loved ones that Conley's testimony was the vilest and most amazing pack of lies ever conceived in the perverted brain of a wicked human being. On the stand, Conley fluctuated between remembering minute details and not remembering anything at all. The Atlanta Journal reported that Conley's story was so completely at the tip of his tongue, even the minutenest things, that his testimony had a recitative air, meaning it sounded like he had memorized his line. But Conley was suspiciously unable to recall some details, saying that I disremember when asked to describe the woman he'd seen with Leo Frank or who Conley had given his affidavit to. It seemed unlikely anyone's memory could be that spotty and looked more like Conley was performing in a play and had forgotten or had never been given some of his lines. Upon cross-examination, Conley did admit that he was the one whose human waste was found on the floor of the elevator shaft.

The defense attorneys did not pursue this detail, but it's going to come up again. Conley was on the stand for 15 hours total, answering questions about the people who'd seen him at the factory or claimed to hear Conley talk about stealing Mary, or even one man who claimed Conley had confessed to him that he had confessed to him that he had. killed someone, the more these accusations were brought in front of him, the more nervous Conley appeared. The Atlanta Georgian reported that he moved uneasily in his seat. He refused to meet the eyes of his inquisitor. He fidgeted with his hands. Conley was starting to display the same types of mannerisms that had convinced people of Leo Frank's guilt. Why did Conley's nervous mannerisms and multiple affidavits not work against him. At this time, racist white people commonly believed black people were just naturally more likely to lie. So it struck jurors and

others in the courtroom as natural that this black man had lied a few times. Admitting his lies made him somehow more trustworthy in the minds of the jurors. Ironically, because Conley's behavior matched people's racist stereotypes, they didn't look more closely at him. And let's get back to the two notes found at the scene of the murder. Even though police initially dismissed them as unimportant, later that summer, everything seemed to hinge on these notes. The journalist who had taken them right after Mary's murder had returned them to the police station, and now they were becoming a centerpiece of the trial.

These murder notes described the murderer as dark-skinned, tall, and slim. Jim Conley had lighter skin and was more accurately described as stocky. The person described in the murder notes was clearly not Jim Conley, and therefore Conley wasn't the murderer. That wraps it up, right? He doesn't match a description likely written by the murderer, so he couldn't have done it. No chance the murderer would want to throw police off the trail, no. But if the person described in those murder notes was not Jim Conley, it was even more obviously not Leo Frank.

So clearly investigators and lawyers were using entirely different reasoning to use the murder notes to pin the murder on Leo. The prosecution needed people to believe that Conley didn't write the notes. They also needed people to believe that Leo had written the notes or had forced Conley to do it and was smart enough to describe a murderer who was very different from both Conley and Leo. How can police and prosecuting attorneys use one set of logic to determine Conley was not the murderer and the opposite set of logic to determine that Leo was? That racism was evident in journalist Harold Ross's statement that Negro blood will not be enough.

Word had spread that Mary's murderer was smart, and some people believed a black man wouldn't be smart enough to pull it off. It's a similar way of thinking that made women really effective spies during World War II. Women were underestimated, disregarded, and invisible. No one would suspect them of being

capable enough to be spies, And in the minds of many citizens, including police officers, lawyers, and detectives, Jim Conley was only a black man and did not have the intelligence to mastermind the murder of Mary Fagan. And let's be clear about this. It's entirely possible that lawyers on both sides of this case knew or suspected Conley was playing with them. But it served the prosecution to let it happen because they were already set on getting Leo convicted. The defense attorneys, on the other hand, had an uphill battle now fighting accusations against Leo and the awful racism that allowed people to dismiss Conley as not smart enough to have committed the crime.

They did find a small opening when on cross-examination they got Conley to admit that he frequently used the factory basement exit to escape people who were trying to collect money from him to pay his debts. So he was familiar with the basement in general and its entrances and exits. As twisted as the logic is, Conley's testimony shouldn't have worked given Jim Crow laws and explicitly racist systems and thinking of the time. A black man would not ordinarily have been able to speak so long and so loudly against a white man and be taken seriously. But as I've said, Leo had all those other things working against. him. He was an industrialist, a northerner, an outsider, the child of an immigrant. Achew. The prosecuting attorney took three hours to deliver his closing arguments, citing examples of Jewish men who'd committed crimes in the past that rise to the heights sublime, but they also

sink to the lowest depth of degradation. He used Leo's letters to his loved ones, claiming they contain innuendos of dark deeds, when in reality they were likely hinting at Lucille Frank's pregnancy in early 1913. Tragically, she suffered a miscarriage during the trial, and Leo and Lucille's lack of children was used against Frank as some kind of proof that he was depraved or perverted, because how could a man with such a beautiful wife not have children after being married for three years? There must be something wrong with him. Lucille remained steadfast, writing a public statement that read, I have been compelled to endure without fault, either on the part of my husband or myself,

more than it falls to the lot of most women to bear. Slanders have been circulated in the community. to the effect that my husband and myself were not happily married, and every conceivable rumor had been put afloat that would do him and me harm. I know my husband is innocent. No man could make the good husband to a woman that he had been to me and be a criminal. I do know Leo Frank, and I know that he is utterly incapable of committing the crime that these detectives and the solicitor are seeking to fasten upon him. Yet it seemed anything anyone else said was eclipsed by the prosecutor's closing argument.

An oratory marathon that was called the most remarkable speech which has ever been delivered in the Fulton County Courthouse. It was definitely full of drama. The prosecutor told jurors that Mary died a noble death without a splotch of, or blemish upon her. In other words, her virtue was intact despite her morally corrupt boss. The prosecutor held Mary's bloody clothes high, and just as the nearby church bells chimed the noon hour. He implored the jury to find.

But one verdict. guilty, guilty, guilty. Clapping and cheering could be heard from outside City Hall when he was finished speaking. Leo's lawyers made a motion for a mistrial on the grounds of a hostile environment. You have to wonder if they simply gestured to the huge, loud, angry crowd outside of the courtroom windows to make their point. The judge quickly dismissed the motion for the judge. for a mistrial and, ironically, almost immediately after that decision, postponed the jury's deliberation and the reading of the verdict because if the jury's decision came after dark,

riots were more likely to erupt. So on Monday, August 25th, 1913, the jury deliberated in a room just a couple of floors above the courtroom. The judge decided Leo and his lawyers were already targets for possibly violent crowds, and if the verdict happened to be not guilty, he felt Leo and his team would be in even more danger. But yeah, definitely not a hostile environment. Leo and Lucille waited across town in Leo's cell. You have to imagine the silence in that jail cell. knowing Leo's life was hanging in the balance while deafening crowds waited at City Hall.

On the day the verdict was expected, there were between 3,500 and 5,000 people filling the streets outside of City Hall. The downtown Atlanta streets teamed with people for several blocks in every direction. Mounted police officers roamed the crowds and must have been wondering how they could possibly. contain all of these people should they decide to riot. The jury deliberated for just one hour and 45 minutes. On their first vote, one person held out with a different opinion, but clearly it didn't take long to convince him to vote with everyone else. Reports say that when the jury of 12 white men reappeared in the courtroom, they were pale and haggard, as if the weight of the decision they had just made sat upon all of them very heavily. Regardless of their personal feelings about the decision

they had just made, they must have been worried about how the crowd would react and what the aftermath would look like. At 4.56 p.m. on August 25th, the verdict was read. The courtroom was empty, except for two prosecuting attorneys and two representative attorneys for the defense, along with a few curious lawyers, and of course, journalists. Neither Leo Frank nor his lawyers were in the courtroom or even at City Hall. The jury foreman's voice trembled as he read the verdict. We have found the defendant guilty. The journalists all rushed immediately to the room next door, which had been set up with multiple phones so they could call in the story to their newspapers. And as usual, the crowd outside was straining to hear through the windows. One newspaper story reported,

The cry of guilty took winged flight from lip to lip. It traveled like the rattle of musketry. Then came a combined shout that rose to the sky. Hats went into the air. Women wept and shouted. Meanwhile, the judge had to follow procedure and ask each juror individually, Is this your vote, even though he could barely hear them over the tumult outside? Jurors were dismissed and paid $2 per day of service, a total of $58 for four weeks of the trial, or about $1,800 today. Mary Fagan's stepfather waited outside the courtroom and insisted on thanking and shaking the hand of every one of the jurors before they left. The judge decided to delay sentencing, noting that none of the jurors had recommended mercy. When the lead prosecutor went outside,

he was lifted up and carried down the street by people in the crowd like he was a hero. The small group of Leo's friends tasked with telling him the verdict, waited in the Fulton County Towers lobby for half an hour because, because they wanted to wait for a doctor to arrive to be with them when they delivered the bad news. This tiny group was a stark contrast to the thousands celebrating outside of the courthouse. You have to wonder if Leo could hear the group's steps ascending the metal stairs as they climbed the seven-story tower. It was the sound of his fate, inching nearer. Maybe Leo became immediately suspicious when he saw the doctor with his friends.

Why would they need a doctor if this was good news? We know that the task of telling Leo the verdict fell to the doctor, though there's no record of what he said. Only Leo's reaction. Leo was shocked. He said, my God, even the jury was influenced by mob law. Lucille, who had been stoic through the entire trial, broke down and appeared to be in shock. A journalist who'd snuck into the group reported, Mrs. Frank huddled closer to her boyish-looking husband.

There was a wild stare in her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck and sobbed bitterly. He stroked her head and pleaded with her to be brave. As you can imagine, newspapers had never sold so well in Atlanta. All three papers printed extra editions and nearly the entire population of Atlanta bought them. The Georgian alone printed more than 130,000 copies. Lucille's mother sent dinner to the Fulton County Tower for Leo and his attorneys that night. Leo's only official statement after the verdict was,

I am as innocent today as I was one year ago. Our research shows that Leo was the first white man in the state of Georgia, convicted on the testimony of a black man. That black man, Jim Conley, was returned to his jail cell after the trial to wait for his own trial on charges of being an accessory to Mary Fagin's murder. Mary's mother was quoted in the newspaper saying that she was glad and relieved and she hoped Conley would be let off with a light sentence despite having lied in his statements. In case you were wondering, Newt Lee had been in jail that entire time and was finally released in August 1913. Leo's attorneys immediately appealed the jury's decision.

While researching for Leo's new trial, they learned that some witnesses had likely perjured themselves, apparently three. by the prosecutor's office or the police. These allegations were denied, of course, and Leo's lawyers released statements reminding those court witnesses what the punishments would be for lying under oath. However, when investigated by detectives who didn't work for the Atlanta Police Department,

the testimonies darkening Leo's reputation turned out to be lies. No actual evidence was ever presented demonstrating that Leo had abused or even approached any young women or girls ever. No evidence Leo had ever met the brothel madam or set foot in a brothel. No evidence of Leo cheating on his wife. All of these claims were made by people that prosecutors had put on the stand and all of the evidence was circumstantial. Lucille launched a letter-writing campaign to pressure politicians on Leo's behalf during the appeals process. Clearly, she was successful as hundreds of letters still exist in the Atlanta archives.

The vast majority are supportive, pledging that they know Leo is innocent. A few were out to scam the Franks out of money, offering their services as mediums able to contact Mary Fagan from beyond the grave. The day after the verdict, Leo, the lawyers, and the judge gathered in the courtroom for sentencing. The meeting was so secretive that even Lucille didn't know about it, and she was not by Leo's side when the sentence was read. Leo declared his innocence to the court, looking the judge in the face as he said, Your Honor, I say now, as I have always said, that I am innocent. further than that, my case is in the hands of my lawyers. The judge used the standard words of the court to announce Leo's sentence, saying,

It is ordered and adjudged by the court that on the 10th day of October 1913, the defendant Leo M. Frank shall be executed by the sheriff of Fulton County. That said defendant on that day between 10 o'clock a.m. and 2 o'clock p.m. shall be hanged by the neck until he is dead. And may God have mercy on his soul. Execution by hanging was the usual sentence for a murder conviction in Georgia in 1913. Leo's lawyers filed their motion for an appeal. His original execution date was postponed because of the appeals process.

In 1913, Georgia, cases could only be appealed due to errors in the law, and the original trial judge had to oversee the. appeal. Leo's lawyers listed 115 errors in the law to appeal, including their previous argument that Conley's testimony should have been inadmissible. They also argued that some of the jurors were clearly anti-Semitic and had lied in order to be placed on the jury. Calling some of the jurors biased was either particularly brave or particularly stupid, depending on your point of view. The city of Atlanta had literally thrown a party for the jurors a couple of weeks after the trial. Yet people who knew two of the jurors had come forward saying that these men had declared Leo's guilt before the trial even began.

One of the jurors was accused of saying, I am glad they indicted that G.D. Jew. Jew. They ought to take him out and lynch him. And if I get on that jury, all hang that Jew, sure. The judge heard the appeal in the library at the state capitol. During the appeal hearing, only the lawyers, detectives, and journalists were allowed inside. Leo was not there. After days of arguments and time for deliberation, the judge gathered the lawyers into his chambers on October 31st. Also present were Leo's in-laws and reporters lining the wall around the room. The judge said,

gentlemen, I've thought about this case more than any other I have ever tried. I'm not certain of this man's guilt. With all the thought I've put in this case, I am not thoroughly convinced that Leo Frank is guilty or innocent. But then the judge continued, but I don't have to be convinced. The jury was convinced. There's no room to doubt that.

I feel it's my duty to order that the motion for a new trial be overruled. Bitter disappointment followed for Leo's team, of course, but it only took minutes for his lawyers to move on to the next option. They had no choice but to take their case to the state Supreme Court of Georgia. Well after the first trial was over, Leo's name appeared in Atlanta newspapers almost every day. But word about this trial and conviction had spread. read well beyond Georgia.

Adolf Oakes was owner and editor of the New York Times from 1896 into the 1920s. At first, Oakes wanted nothing to do with Leo Frank's case. He did not want to be involved in a quote-unquote Jewish legal case or have the New York Times be perceived as a Jewish newspaper. Oakes' editorial assistant called him a non-Jewish Jew, saying he will have nothing to do with any Jewish movement. Oakes was known for having brought the New York Times into the forefront of journalism and helping to raise journalistic standards for the entire industry. His motto became the paper's slogan, all the news that's fit to print. He even refused advertisers he thought were disingenuous. But prominent Atlanta Jews had started reaching out for help. They traveled to New York

after the verdict meeting with other prominent Jews and arguing the evidence against Leo Frank is purely prejudice and perjury. The feeling against the quote unquote damned Jew is so bitter that the jury was intimidated and feared for their lives which undoubtedly would have been in danger had any other verdict been rendered. Oakes had heard enough. Later that year he met with members of the American Jewish Committee and inform them that the journalistic powers of the New York Times were on standby awaiting further developments. The country, it seemed, was starting to mobilize in Leo's defense. Advertising tycoon Alfred Lasker started a PR campaign for Leo,

paying to make sure that Leo's interviews were circulated to papers around the country and writing the rallying cry for Leo's innocence saying, the truth is on the march. Newspaper headlines around the country told Leo's story and letters poured in from people supporting him. Was it too little too late? Or could Leo still be saved? At this point in our story, that question rests.

in the hands of the Georgia Supreme Court. Join me for episode five of the vigilantes to hear what's next. The show is hosted and executive produced by Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks, and our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. It's written by Amy Watkin and Sharon McMahon, and it's researched by Carrey Anton, Sharon McMahon, Amy Watkin, Mandy Reed, and Melanie Buckparks.

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