until the verdict was announced.
The jurors, all white men and Atlanta residents, were chosen within three hours of the first morning of the trial. One hundred and forty-four people were drawn. Fifty-four were excused; thirty-seven because they confessed an already-formed opinion, three because they were over sixty, fourteen because they opposed capital punishment. The defense used eighteen of its twenty strikes without a cause while the prosecution used seven of the ten it was allowed. The twelve men chosen were: CJ. Basshart (Pressman), A.H. Henslee (Head Salesman, Buggy Co.), J.F. Higdon (Building Contractor), W.N. Jeffries (Real Estate), M. Johenning (Shipping Clerk), W.E Medcalf (Mailer), J.T. Ozburn (Optician), Frederic V.L. Smith (Paying Teller), D. Townsend (Paying Teller), F.E. Windburn (Railroad Claims Agent), A.L. Wiseby (Cashier), M.S. Woodward (Cashier, King Hardware). They were lodged at the Old Kimball House and not allowed to read the newspapers or talk with their families concerning the trial.
The chief prosecutor, Solicitor-General Hugh A. Dorsey, according to the newspapers, was handsome and forceful. At forty-two, he was Solicitor General for the Fulton County courts. Fully convinced of Frank’s guilt, he was assisted by Frank Arthur Hooper, a successful corporate attorney who had volunteered his services, and Edward A. Stephens, Assistant Solicitor General.
Leo Frank was defended by Atlanta’s two well-known trial lawyers, Luther Z. Rosser who, according to the Atlanta Constitution, was the “most persuasive and most domineering lawyer in Atlanta in the art of examining witnesses” and Reuben Arnold, “best known attorney in Georgia,” and “one of the ablest criminal lawyers in the South,” according to the Atlanta Journal. They were assisted by Stiles Hopkins and Herbert Haas.
In his opening argument for the prosecution, Special Assistant Solicitor Hooper described the state’s case against Frank. According to his outline, Mary Phagan had died as a result of a premeditated rape by the defendant, Leo Frank. It was alleged that Frank had seduced and taken liberties with other young factory girls and had made unsuccessful advances to Mary Phagan. Several surviving family members have said that Frank harassed Mary Phagan and that she went home and told her mother. Several former National Pencil Company employees who are still living, but wish that their names not be disclosed, have also alleged that they heard Frank sexually harass Mary Phagan.
According to the state, Frank expected Mary Phagan to come to the factory on the Saturday she died, because a fellow employee had asked Frank for Mary’s pay envelope earlier and he refused to give it to her. The state contended that Jim Conley had previously acted as a lookout for Frank, so Frank’s immoral activities would not be discovered, and Frank had told Conley to work on April 26. Assistant Solicitor Hooper then sketched in the state’s contention that Frank was alone in the office, gave Mary Phagan her pay envelope, whereupon she asked him if the metal for her work had come. Saying he didn’t know, Frank followed Mary to the metal room and made sexual overtures to her. She repulsed him and he knocked her down and, while she was unconscious, raped her. Then, fearful of the consequences, he strangled her. Thereafter, he went up to the fourth floor to get the workers out of the building and called Conley, confessing “that he guessed he had struck her too hard.” With Conley, Frank dragged the body to the basement and made plans for Conley to burn it later. He gave Conley two dollars and fifty cents and then two hundred dollars, but later had Conley return the money, promising he would give it back to Conley after Conley disposed of the body.
As Hooper went over the outline of the rest of the state’s case, he singled out the expected testimony of Monteen Stover, who he claimed would contradict Frank’s contention that he had been in his office continuously from 12:00 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.
Testimony began that Monday afternoon as Mrs. J.W. Coleman (Fannie Phagan Coleman), the mother of little Mary Phagan, testified. Dressed in a black mourning dress and heavy veil which she threw back, she spoke in a low voice, telling that she last saw her daughter alive on April 26, 1913, at their residence, 146 Lindsey Street, about a quarter to twelve, before Mary went to the pencil factory to get her pay. Tearfully, she described her daughter and the clothing she was wearing.
A court officer drew forth a suitcase which had been hidden behind several chairs.
Standing in front of the mother, he undid the satchel and lifted out the dress and shoes that Mary Phagan had worn when her mother last saw her. The officer first laid the dress upon the witness stand, almost under the mother’s feet and placed the shoes beside it. Everyone had leaned forward when the satchel had been brought from behind the chairs; everyone, the lawyers, the audience, the jury, waited as the torn clothing and shoes were placed close to Mary’s mother for her identification.
After the most hurried glance at the clothing, which almost touched the hem of her dress, Mrs. Coleman covered her eyes with a palm fan and began to sob. This was how Fannie Phagan Coleman, without speaking, identified the clothing of her murdered daughter.
At that time, few women atttended a court trial except for those who were related either to the victim or to the defendant. Fannie Phagan Coleman and Ollie Mae Phagan, little Mary’s sister, as well as her brothers, all attended the trial, as did Lucille Selig Frank, Frank’s wife, and Mrs. Rae Frank, his mother. When asked for her thoughts by a reporter for the Atlanta Journal on the first day’s proceedings of the trial, Fannie Phagan Coleman said: “I would rather not talk about it ... I don’t want to express an opinion.” It was this profession of silence which caused the rest of the Phagan family not to speak of the trial for the next seventy years.
On that day, Ollie Mae Phagan agreed: “I’m like my mother in not wanting to talk about the trial. The trial is almost more than my mother can bear. She was the youngest of us—Mary, I mean—she was the life of our home. Now everything is different.”
Among the testimonies that proved especially damaging to Frank was that of Newt Lee, the night watchman who usually worked weekdays from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., but on Saturdays began work at 5:00 p.m. He reported that on the Saturday of the murder he got to the factory at 4:00 p.m.:
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