Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited

In 1913, a jury convicted Leo Frank, a superintendent in a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, of the murder of his 13-year-old employee Mary Phagan.  They found her body in the factory cellar. Despite flimsy evidence and coerced testimonies, the jury convicted Frank. All appeals were denied. However, on his last day in office in June 1915, Governor John Slaton, believing in Frank’s innocence commuted the sentence to life in prison.  This outraged many. An organized mob of 25 men, pillars of Georgia’s legal community kidnapped Frank from prison and hanged him.