Monday, 2nd March 1914: Burns Expected In Atlanta Tuesday To Take Up Frank Case, The Atlanta Journal

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Detective Finishes His Lecture Tour in St. Augustine

Monday Night and Will Then Hasten Here

COURT TO RESENTENCE FRANK DURING WEEK

His Attorneys Will Ask That Life Term Be Given Defend Ant

Instead of Sentence of Death

William J. Burns, who has achieved an international reputation as a detective, is expected to arrive in Atlanta Tuesday to commence an investigation of the Frank case.

Burns finishes his lecture tour Monday night, when he will deliver an address in St. Augustine, Fla., and he will then start for this city.

Burns has been retained in the case by friends of Leo M. Frank, whose names he refuses to divulge.

When he agreed to take up the case Burns declared he would simply make an effort to develop any evidence which might have been overlooked by the authorities, and that he will divulge any evidence he finds regardless of whether it tends to clear Frank or to weave the chain more closely about the convicted man.

If the remittitur in the Frank case from the supreme court is received in the superior court within the next two days.

Frank will be arraigned before Judge Ben H. Hill and resentenced within the week.

Attorneys for Frank will make an effort to have Judge Ben H. Hill impose a life sentence in lieu of the death penalty, but if this effort is futile, Burns will have less than 60 days in which to secure evidence, which might be of assistance to Frank.

The defense's extraordinary motion for a new trial will probably be delayed as long as possible, that the detective may have a chance to develop new evidence.

Regardless of the failure or success, however, of Burns' work, an extraordinary motion is certain, and it will be based on Dr. H. F. Harris' admission that his microscopic examination showed the hair found on the lathe in the pencil factory not to be Mary Phagan's, and on the repudiation of his testimony by Albert Mc Knight, a negro witness for the state.

Rumors that other states' witnesses have repudiated their testimony made at the trial are persistent, but Frank's attorneys Reuben R. Arnold and Luther Z. Rosser, remain silent on the point.

Although the "embargo" has been lifted and reporters now have free access to Frank's cell in the tower, the convicted man had nothing to say Monday.

Frank declined to discuss the statement of little Helen Ferguson that the Saturday before the murder of Mary Phagan that the negro Conley, Frank's accuser, had made advances to her.

The effort of the defense to secure a life sentence for the convicted man from Judge Hill is certain to be opposed by Solicitor Dorsey, who will depend on the Baughn case in his argument.

The supreme court held in that case that the resentencing of a defendant in a capital case is simply the fixing of a new date for an execution, and that the original penalty cannot be changed after it has once been imposed.

The Journal has received a letter from Allan Pinkerton, of the agency, which bears his name, stating that his visit to Atlanta last week had nothing to do with the Frank case.

The Journal's report was that William Pinkerton was in the city and this was erroneous, as William Pinkerton is in California, and the report grew out of the visit of Allan Pinkerton.

At the time of the visit of Allan Pinkerton, Harry Scott, assistant superintendent of the Atlanta agency and the man who worked the Phagan case, was out of the city.