Who Lynched Leo Frank?
Frank, to no surprise to the Atlanta community, was convicted, and sentenced to death. On three different occasions, the trial judge refused to grant a new trial (though letters published after his death suggests he had concerns regarding the verdict). Subsequently, on five separate appeals, the Georgia and U.S. Supreme Courts upheld Frank’s conviction. In the end, however, John Slaton — Georgia’s outgoing governor, who was also a law partner of Frank’s attorney — commuted Frank’s sentence to life in prison. That decision set off a chain of events that led to Frank’s lynching. On August 16, 1915, a mob of citizens from Marietta, Georgia (Phagan’s home) — many of whom were quite prominent in the community — kidnapped Frank from Georgia’s state prison farm at Milledgeville. They then drove him 150 miles to a cotton gin. There, the next morning, they lynched him, by hanging. Southern justice had been done. A grand jury was convened to investigate the lynching. But it didn’t get far. A
