Saturday, 26th July 1913 Frank’s Lawyers Ready for Trial

Atlanta Constitution
July 26th, 1913

They Have Started Summoning Witnesses and Are Quoted as Having Agreed to Go to Trial.

That Attorneys Reuben R. Arnold and Luther Z. Rosser, representing Leo M. Frank, charged with the Mary Phagan murder, have decided to go to trial Monday when the case is called was information made public Friday from an apparently reliable source. Coupled with this, and apparently making the trial doubly sure, is the news that the defense has started summoning its witnesses and making final preparations for the actual trial.

Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey reiterated Friday his statement in regard to the stand the state has taken and declared that he would oppose every move for continuance, unless there should prove an extraordinary reason for putting it off.

Judge L. S. Roan who will conduct the trial and who was slightly ill Thursday, had apparently recovered Friday and expects to call the case Monday morning should nothing unusual happen.

Despite the fact that the attorneys for the defense still maintain a blank silence in regard to their position and decline to say whether or not they will ask for a postponement, the impression has got out that they have agreed to having the trial come off.

Postponement Had Been Expected.

For the greater part of the week the impression has been that the defense would seek to have the case put off, and Attorney Arnold strengthened this idea by declaring that the trial of such a tedious case during the heated term was something unheard of.

Practically the only reasons now known by which a postponement would be granted by Judge Roan would be the illness of Frank, or of counsel a material witness or of the judge himself. From the Tower, where Frank has been imprisoned since May 8 when the coroner's jury bound him over to the grand jury on a charge of murder, comes the statement that Frank is in the best of health and desirous to have the trial come off.

The greater part of Friday was spent by deputy sheriffs in summoning the 144 veniremen who were drawn Friday afternoon. It is not expected that the jury will be completed from this list, as numbers of people in Fulton county have already formed conclusions from the lengthy discussion which the Phagan murder aroused while a number of others will doubtless be called who are opposed to capital punishment. This would remove them from the jury in a rial of murder.

State Ready With Witnesses.

The state has practically completed serving its witnesses and expects all of them to be in the courtroom Monday. The defense, which has started summoning about 150 witnesses, has made no announcement about its side, but it is believed that many of these witnesses are gathered so that they can testify to Frank's character should it be decided best to put that before the jury.

It is believed that about thirty of the witnesses for the defense are material witnesses to the trial and will be used during the progression of the case.

Arrangements have already been made in the courtroom where the case will be tried and even the inkstands which are prepared for the lawyers' tables have been filled and the chairs and benches put in.