Appeals and Commutation
Portrait of Georgia Governor John Slaton. John M. Slaton (1866-1955) was an Atlanta attorney and politician. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1896 to 1909 and served as the Speaker of the House during the last four years of his tenure. He subsequently served in the Georgia State Senate until 1913. In 1911, he was appointed acting governor of Georgia after Hoke Smith was elected to the United States Senate. Slaton was later elected to his own term as governor in 1913. Courtesy of the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center via Digital Library of Georgia.
Over the lengthy appeals process, the Leo Frank case became a national cause. Northern newspapers, primarily The New York Times and Collier’s Weekly, argued Frank’s innocence amid nationwide expressions of anti-Semitism.
This angered many Georgians, particularly Tom Watson, populist politician and publisher of Watson’s Jeffersonian Magazine. When national publications attacked Georgia, Watson retaliated by disseminating sensational, anti-Semitic editorials that turned public opinion against Frank, and depicted the support of Frank’s appeals process as meddling from Northern and Jewish interests.
Ultimately, Georgia governor John Slaton bore the responsibility for deciding whether Frank would hang or if his sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment. Slaton received letters urging commutation from Jim Conley’s attorney (who was convinced of his client’s guilt) and Judge Roan, who had presided over the Frank case. He also received letters against commutation, including one from a group of city leaders from Mary Phagan’s hometown of Marietta. Slaton agonized over the decision: he read trial documents, visited the crime scene, and ultimately commuted Frank’s sentence on his last day in office. Knowing the decision would be unpopular, Slaton left Georgia, and did not return for ten years.
After the commutation, Frank was moved to the state prison farm near Milledgeville, Georgia.
