The lynching of Leo Frank.
Before going into the details of the Leo Frank case, here are a few facts:
1) Leo Frank was 100% innocent.
2) The key witness against him was the actual murderer.
(There are details of this case that are not appropriate for this site and will be omitted.)
Mary Phagan, a worker at a pencil factory managed by Leo Frank in Atlanta, Georgia was found murdered in the factory on April 27, 1913.
Botched police work caused crime-scene evidence to be lost.
Jim Conley, the pencil factory’s black janitor, was caught by the plant’s day watchman, E.F. Holloway, washing a shirt. Conley tried to hide the shirt, then claimed the stains on the shirt were from rust. Conley had a record of drinking and violence.
When confronted with evidence against him and inconsistencies in his story, Conley came up with a new story.
In this version, Frank asked Conley for help in moving Phagan’s body and gave Conley $200. When the police asked where the $200 was, Conley said that Frank had taken it back. Conley also said that Frank told him on the day of the murder, “Why should I hang? I have wealthy people in Brooklyn.”
Two witnesses came forward to incriminate Conley. Will Green, a carnival worker, said that he had been playing a card game at the factory with Conley and had run away when Conley had declared his intention to rob a girl who walked by. William Mincey, an insurance salesman, had met a drunk Conley on the street. He said that Conley, trying to brush Mincey off, said, “I have killed one today and do not wish to kill another.” Mincey had thought it was a joke. Neither man testified in court.
Even William Smith, the lawyer who represented Conley, declared Conley guilty of the murder after the trial.
Dorsey was later elected governor of Georgia.
On August 17, 1915 Leo Frank was kidnapped from jail and lynched.
The lynch mob included many prominent citizens, none of whom concealed their identity, and none of whom was ever prosecuted.
Frank’s only requests were that they allow him to write a note to his wife, that they return his wedding ring to his wife, and that they cover his lower body before hanging him, since he was wearing nothing but a nightshirt. Frank’s last words were, “I think more of my wife and my mother than I do of my own life.”
Frank’s body was eventually transferred to an undertaker and buried in the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing New York.
In 1982, Alonzo Mann, by then an old man, volunteered that he had seen Jim Conley dragging Mary Phagan’s body at the factory. Mann swore in an affidavit that Conley had threatened to kill him if he reported what he had seen. Alonzo Mann died in 1985.
After a 1983 denial of a pardon, with Mann’s testimony the Anti-Defamation League convinced the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant Frank a posthumous pardon. On March 11, 1986, a pardon was issued by the board.
(portions cut-and-pasted from wikipedia)