0938 Page – Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court Appeals Records, 1913, 1914

Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

Mr. Rosser: Now, the question of whether Boots said he went into that room is now easily settled. (Mr. Rosser here read that portion of the cross examination of the witness Rogers, stating that when Frank left the door of the undertaking room, he went out of view.)
Mr. Dorsey: Well, that's cross examination, ain't it?
Mr. Rosser: Yes, but I presume you would tell the truth on cross examination, I don't know; he passed out of his view, he didn't say he went into a room.
Mr. Dorsey: Correct me if I'm wrong. Boots Rogers said he didn't go where the corpse lay, and that's the proposition we lay down.
Mr. Rosser: That isn't the proposition either; now you made a statement that isn't true, the other statement isn't true. Rogers said that when he left "he went out of my view," he was practically out of his view all the time. I was just trying to quote the substance of that thing.
Mr. Dorsey (resuming): He wanted to get out of the view of any man who represented the majesty and dignity of the law, and he went in behind curtains or any old thing that would hide his countenance from these men. And he said on the leading examination—
Mr. Rosser: I don't know what you led out of him, but on the cross he told the truth.
Movant shows that under the foregoing facts, the Court erred in not making any ruling at all, and erred in allowing the Solicitor-General to proceed with his illegal argument, which was not founded on the evidence, and erred, and in not rebuking the Solicitor-General, and in not stating to the jury that the Solicitor-General had mis-stated the evidence in the particulars objected to, and erred in not telling the jury that there was no evidence in the case that Rogers had sworn that defendant did not look at the body of Mary Phagan, or that Frank went into another room, and because of the aforesaid errors in acting and failing to act, on the part of the Court, and because of such illegal and improper argument of the Solicitor-General, a new trial should be granted.
100. Movant further says that a new trial should be granted because of the following:
The Solicitor-General, in his closing argument, spoke as follows to the jury, the subject under discussion being the whereabouts of the key to the elevator box on Sunday morning, April 27, the language of the Solicitor-General being as follows:
"Why don't they bring the fireman here who went around and gave such instructions? First, because it wasn't necessary, they could have cut the electricity off and locked the box. And second, they didn't bring him because no such man ever did any such thing, and old Holloway told the truth before he came to the conclusion that old Jim Conley was his nigger, and he saw the importance of the proposition that when Frank went there Sunday morning the box was unlocked and Frank had the key in his pocket."
Whereupon the following occurred:
Mr. Rosser: You say Mr. Frank had the key in his pocket? No one mentioned it, that isn't the evidence; I say it was hung up in the office, that's the undisputed evidence.
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