Wednesday, 9th December 1914: Leo Frank Re-sentenced To Be Hanged January 22, The Atlanta Journal

"AN INNOCENT MAN CONDEMNED," SAYS HE TO JUDGE HILL

Prisoner Receives Death Sentence Calmly After Making Statement to Court Branding Jim Conley as Murderer

"LIFE IS SWEET TO ME; DEATH HAS NO TERRORS"

"My Execution Will Mark Era in Georgia Where Criminal's Word Is Accepted Over That of White Women," He Says

Judge Ben H. Hill, of Fulton Superior Court, at 12 o'clock on Wednesday, sentenced Leo M. Frank to hang on Friday, January 22, 1915, for the murder of Mary Phagan. Frank, before receiving sentence, made a statement which was most remarkable both in what he said and in the manner of his delivery. The proceeding was witnessed by a crowd which packed the Court Room, preserved almost absolute silence, and seemed deeply impressed by the condemned man's words.

The Statement follows:

FRANK'S STATEMENT

May it please your honor, this is a momentous day, a day of far greater importance to the State of Georgia and to the majesty of the law even than to myself, for under the guise of law your honor is about to pronounce words that will condemn to death an innocent man. Transcending in importance the loss of my own life is the indelible stain and dishonor resting upon the name of this State by reason of its judicially murdering an innocent man. The jury's verdict of August 25, 1913, finding me guilty of the death of Mary Phagan, did not then, and does not now speak the truth. I declare to your honor and to the world that that verdict was made in an atmosphere seething with mob violence and clamor for my life, a verdict based on evidence absolutely false, which under other circumstances would not have been given a moment's credence.

Your honor, I deeply sympathize with the parents of Mary Phagan. The brute that brought so much grief upon them has plunged me into sorrow and misery unspeakable, and is about to accomplish my undoing. But this I know, my execution will mark the advent of a new era in Georgia, where a good name and stainless honor count for naught against the word of a vile criminal; where the testimony of Southern white women of unimpeachable character is branded as false by the prosecution, disregarded by the jury, and the perjured vaporings of a black brute alone accepted as the whole truth; where a mob crying for blood invaded the Court Room and became the dominant factor in what should have been a solemn judicial trial. Oh, shame that these things be true!

DEATH HAS NO TERRORS.

Life is very sweet to me. It is not an easy thing to give up the love of dear ones, of wife and parents, of ever loyal friends. Though this be true, death has no terrors for me. I go to my end in the full consciousness of innocence and in the firm conviction that, as there is a God in heaven, my full vindication must come some day. With the dawn of that day, there will come to the people of Georgia a full realization of this horrible mistake, a mistake irretrievable"the execution of an innocent man, a victim of perjury, prejudice and passion.

HILL HEARS PETITION.

Judge Hill, immediately upon his arrival at the Court House at 11 o'clock Wednesday morning, heard the petition of Solicitor Dorsey for a Writ of Habeas Corpus ordering Frank brought from the jail before the Court. The Writ was issued with the Order that Frank be brought at once. Judge Hill then retired to his private room. Meanwhile the Court Room, which is on the second floor, had been filling up since an hour preceding the Judge's arrival. The seats were taken and every available foot of standing room was filled. When there was room for no more in the Court Room, the crowd packed around the entrance and strained on tiptoe to catch a glimpse inside.

Frank entered the Court Room at 11:55 o'clock, having been brought quietly into a rear entrance of the Court House, lifted to the second floor on the prisoner's elevator, and escorted to the Court Room through the prisoners' corridor leading to a door which flanks the Judge's stand. In front of him walked the Sheriff C. W. Mangum. Behind him walked Deputies Minor and Stanley.

ROSSER AND ARNOLD PRESENT.

At a table in front of the Judge's stand inside the railing sat Frank's lawyers Luther Rosser, Reuben Arnold, Herbert and Leonard Haas and Henry C. Peeples. Sheriff Mangum walked to this table, placed a chair for his prisoner, and Frank sat down. His lawyers reached across the table and shook him by the hand. The crowd rose and craned their necks to see him. While they were staring, Judge Hill entered. Everyone rose in respect to him, then took their seats. Officers were stationed at the doors and all through the crowd. Judge Hill instructed them to arrest instantly any person who manifested the slightest evidence of approval or disapproval.

Then, "Is Leo M. Frank in Court?" asked the Judge. Frank acknowledged his presence by rising, and sat down. "Have you or your attorneys anything to say before sentence of death is passed upon you?" asked the Judge. Attorney Herbert Haas rose. "Mr. Frank has a statement to make, your honor," he said.

FRANK CALM, VOICE FIRM.

Frank, standing by his place at the table, faced the Court. His face was drawn and pallid, his manner was calm, his voice was firm and carried to every part of the Court Room. The crowd drew its breath, as there was a low shuffling sound in the rear as spectators stood up to get a better view of the man about to be condemned. Looking into the eye of the Judge, Frank made his statement. Once he clenched his hands and raised them above his head. Two or three times he gave emphatic gestures with his arms. And two or three times he took his eyes away from the Judge and turned them on the crowd.

When Frank said, "I deeply sympathize with the parents of Mary Phagan," there was something like a man's low muttering under his breath in a back corner of the Court Room. Two deputies hurried toward the sound, pushing through the pack, and the sound stopped. Frank kept on, apparently unconscious of the little interruption. After finishing, he hung his head and looked as if he had an impulse to say something more. The impulse changed to one last appealing look into the eyes of the Judge. Then he sat down. The Judge passed sentence.

JUDGE HILL'S SENTENCE.

"It is ordered by the Court that you shall be carried by the Sheriff to the common jail of the County and there safely kept with a sufficient guard until Friday, the 22d day of January, 1915, on which day, between the hours of 10 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, you shall be hanged by the Sheriff until the sentence of death shall be carried out."

As Judge Hill spoke the last words of the death sentence, the Bell of a nearby Church struck the hour of noon, and was answered by the clock in the Court Room. It was just at 12 o'clock when Frank finished his statement to the jury which found him guilty, and as he spoke the last word of that extraordinary recital today, the same church bell rang out the hour. The Judge rose and stepped into his anteroom. The Sheriff rose with a gesture to Frank; he followed, the deputies fell in behind, and they walked out through the door by which they had entered.

While Frank was at the Court House, Deputy Sheriffs made a thorough examination of his Cell in the Jail. They found nothing out of order. The sentencing of Frank on Wednesday makes it the third time he has been condemned to die for the murder of Mary Phagan, and each time the sentence has been pronounced in a different Court Room. The first sentence was pronounced by Judge L. S. Roan, the presiding Judge at the trial, in accordance with the verdict of the jury before which Frank was tried. That sentence was pronounced in the old City Hall Building at the corner of Pryor and Hunter Streets, where the trial took place.The second sentence was pronounced by Judge Ben H. Hill, in accordance with the refusal of the State Supreme Court to grant Frank a new trial. That sentence was pronounced in the Thrower building, where Judge Hill had his Court Room pending the completion of the new Court House.

The third sentence, pronounced in the stately Chamber of the Court in Fulton County's new $1,500,000 temple of justice, is in accordance with the State Supreme Court's refusal to set aside the verdict because of Frank's absence from the Court Room when the verdict was announced.

It became known Wednesday, following the resentencing of Frank, that his Counsel has planned still another move to get his Case once more before the Courts, as exclusively forecasted in The Journal Tuesday. They decline to state what this plan is, but it is understood that their next move, whatever it may be, will be made within seven days. Lawyers who have followed the Case and who know the steps which can be taken under the circumstances, say they expect the move will be an effort to get the Case before the United States Supreme Court on the ground that a spirit of mob violence prevailed at the trial, thereby depriving Frank of due process of Law.

JURORS ENTER COURT AS FRANK IS RE-SENTENCED

The routine of Grand Jury work was broken Friday by that body's visit to Judge Hill's Court Room while Leo M. Frank was making his statement to the Judge. The Grand Jurors arrived in a body, but the crowd inside the doors was so great as to make admittance difficult. Some little disturbance was created by their arrival.

Wednesday no indictments were returned; witnesses testified in regard to the alleged bond-forging against which Solicitor Dorsey is fighting. The session broke up at 1 o'clock, to reassemble again Thursday.