Tuesday, 24th March 1914: City Sleuths’ Methods Being Probed By Burns?, The Atlanta Journal

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Detective in Frank Case Said to Be Working Along This Line in New York

Despite his silence on the subject, the report that William J. Burns is making a vigorous investigation of the methods of the city detectives was given color Tuesday by dispatches from New York, which say the great detective has interviewed Nina Formby.

The Formby woman did not figure in the trial of Frank and her chief value to the defense has been her attack on the city detectives, who she declares coerced her into signing false affidavits and that they took the affidavits at a time when she was mentally irresponsible because of the continued use of intoxicants.

Despite the fact that her affidavit attacking the police is now in his hands, and attorneys for the defense of Frank have interviewed her, Burns has apparently considered her charges against the city detectives of sufficient importance to warrant a personal interview.

In addition to the Formby woman according to dispatches, Burns expects Tuesday to visit Irvington, near New York, where Henry F. Becker, the former master mechanic of the National Pencil Factory, is residing.

Becker's affidavit is expected to be the one of the most important of the many which will be attached to the extraordinary motion for a new trial.

He is said to recognize his signature on the order blank, used in 1909 and later thrown into a trash pile, on which one of the two murder notes was written.

Interest in the Frank case, during the absence from the city of Detective Burns, is now centering on the extraordinary motion for a new trial, which will be filed by attorneys for the defense probably during the present week.

C. W. Burke, a detective in the employ of Attorney Luther Z. Rosser, has been at work on the case since the trial of Frank and the new evidence he is said to have unearthed will be embodied in the extraordinary motion.

It is generally expected that the hearing of the motion will be set by Judge Ben H. Hill for an early date that it may be disposed of before the time now fixed for the execution of Frank, April 17.

However, there is little chance of the execution not being stayed by the courts as in the event, the extraordinary motion is denied by Judge Hill, the attorneys for the defense will ask an appeal to the Supreme Court.

WILL DELAY EXECUTION.

On extraordinary motions the judge of the superior court can refuse to sign a bill of exceptions on which the motion is carried to the higher court, but this course is unusual where the motion is at all meritorious.

As a result, even if the motion is made before Judge Hill and decided adversely to the defense by him before April 17, the execution will be stayed while the Supreme Court deliberates on the new motion in the case.

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Press Comment on the Frank Trial (Lumpkin (Ga.)

Independent.)

Justice demands that Frank be given a new trial the people of Georgia demand it and religion and civilization are bringing the unrelenting restlessness in the minds of the people throughout the United States who fear that the great Empire State of the South is about to take the life of an innocent man.

If the unjust verdict, as it seems to be, is carried into effect and Frank should be hanged by the neck until dead, he would be at rest, but if at a later date his innocence was confirmed, Georgia would be guilty of committing willful murder of robbing a loving wife of her husband and of accepting the evidence of an ex-convict in preference to that of a man whose past life had been without blemish.

***

(Toccoa (Ga.)

Record.)

The Atlanta Journal is to be commended for the stand it has taken in demanding a new trial for Frank, now that the people have had time to study the case from an impassioned standpoint.

If a new trial is granted,

The Journal will have rendered the state a lasting service, for a stigma has been fastened upon Georgia, in the eyes of the outside world, from the reports of the methods used to bring about Frank's trial and conviction.