Thursday, 26th March 1914: Dorsey Is Working Hard On Frank Case, The Atlanta Journal

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Solicitor Will Vigorously Resist Attorney's Motion for New Trial

Solicitor

General Hugh M. Dorsey, despite his refusal to discuss recent developments in the Leo M. Frank case, is known to be preparing evidence with which to fight the extraordinary motion for a new trial which attorneys for the defense will file in the criminal division of the superior court.

Although actively engaged in the prosecution of routine criminal cases each morning, he is devoting his afternoons to work on the Frank case.

City Detectives Starnes and Campbell, who have been working practically under his direction since long before the trial, consult with him each day.

Two of the big points of the defense in its coming motion will be the attack on the Solicitor's theory that the hair found on the lathe in the metal room was that of the slain girl, Mary Phagan, and the contention that the murder notes could not have been written in Frank's private office as Jim Conley claims.

The Solicitor is carefully preparing to fight these two points, and many witnesses are said to have been interviewed by the two detectives.

When it became known that the state's expert, Dr. H. F. Harris, had made a microscopic examination of the hair and decided it was not Mary Phagan's, the Solicitor stated that in this matter he did not consider the opinion of the physician of value, and asserted he still believed the hair to be Mary Phagan's.

TO CALL ON EXPERTS.

To combat the contention of the defense, he will have the testimony of several experts, it is said, who will swear that a microscopic examination of hair is not of greater value than a visual examination.

The murder notes before the trial were in the hands of Solicitor Dorsey and he made a careful study of them, including a microscopic examination of the almost obliterated signature now claimed by the defense to be that of H. F. Becker, a former master mechanic.

He expected at the trial, it is said, that the defense would stress the point that the order blank on which the murder note was written bore the numerals in the blank for the date "190 " instead of "191 ," and contend that such paper would not have been in Frank's office.

As a result he already has testimony in his hands with which to fight the defense's contention.

PAGE 6, COLUMN 4

Press Comment on the Frank Trial

The Reporter earnestly hopes that a new trial will be granted.

A question has been raised as to the fairness of the first trial, as to whether the jury made its verdict solely upon the evidence adduced or was unduly swayed by the clamor of the crowds which thronged the court room and the streets outside.

Doubt having been created, it is better for society that a new trial be granted La Grange Reporter.

***

We are not interested in Frank.

We are only concerned about the matter of giving him a fair trial and an opportunity to secure from the public, generally, equal justice before the law.

He should be viewed as an American citizen and a human being who, charged with a great crime, seeks to arrest public attention so that it may be directed toward the great principle that every man is presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty by "due process of law."

We have not been solicited by any man to espouse the cause of Frank.

We do not do so but distinctly affirm that we do not know, from all that has been offered, whether he is guilty or not, and hence we insist that this fact should be known, beyond a reasonable doubt, before we demand his life.

We are unable to place the value on the testimony which was given it by the verdict of the trial jury.

We very much fear that certain rights, which are guaranteed by our courts, were not sacredly regarded when this man was tried for murder Bartow Tribune.