Pardon and Public Opinion
Ku Klux Klan at gravesite of Mary Phagan, Ed Fields holding the megaphone, Marietta City Cemetery, Marietta Georgia, September 3, 1983. Copyright Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Courtesy of Georgia State University via Digital Library of Georgia.
At the time of the trial, most Georgians believed Frank was guilty. In the years following the Leo Frank case, Northern newspapers, particularly The New York Times, published numerous articles that emphasized Frank’s trial was unfair. These pieces angered many Georgians who resented the challenge of Southern courts by Northern journalists.
The African American press also rejected white newspaper coverage of the Frank case. This came partly because the white press employed the same racist caricatures of Jim Conley that the Frank defense team had resorted to, and partly in exasperation that a white man’s lynching received so much more publicity than the lynchings of hundreds of African American men.
In 1982, Frank’s former office boy, Alonzo Mann, signed an affidavit stating he saw Jim Conley carrying Mary Phagan’s body the day of her murder. Based upon this revelation, the Anti-Defamation League applied for a posthumous pardon for Frank from the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. The application was denied in a ruling that stated Mann’s testimony did not conclusively prove Frank’s innocence.
The ADL applied again, based on Georgia’s failure to protect Frank. This pardon was granted in 1986. The pardon did not address Frank’s guilt or innocence, only the state’s failure to protect him.
