Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

I THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN AND NEWS. LUTHER ROSSER EXEMPLIFYING THE GENTLE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINING To the casual spectator who feels no personal interest in the outcome of the Frank trial, the one great feature of the courtroom is the cross-examining of the State’s witnesses by Luther Z. Rosser. Rosser roars.. Rosser whispers, Rosser threatens, Rosser pleads, Rosser insinuates. Rosser cajoles. Rosser jests. At the left is shown Rosser holding his arms out as though to receive and clasp to his breast the answer about to come to a difficult question he has put. At the right is Rosser grinning sarcastically. A witness for the State has just said that his memory was as fresh after two years as two days. N aaBawsv STATE HOPES DR. HARRIS FIXED Fid THAT FRANK RAD CHANGE TD KIEL DIRE f ■ • V it - By JAMES B. NEVIN. The testimony of Dr Roy Harris, chairman of the State Board of Health, and one of the most learned and approved physicians in Georgia, was dramatic, both in its substance and in the manner of its delivery Friday. It was not calculated to help Le<K, Frank—and it did not. The exhibition of a portion of the contents cf the dead girl’s stomach, for the purpose of approximating the time of *her death, held breathiess the packed courthouse—and the faint ing of the physician during the progress of his testimony gave a final tciK-h cf melodrama to the trial that tr illed the audience as nothing else a thus far. Or. Harris impressed me. too, as bslie^ng 4 n Frank’s guilt—I do not know that he does believe that way, it merely happens that he seemed so U impress me. And if he impressed that jury as ns impressed me. then the things he teetifii-d may. if the remainder of the case against Frank holds together, prove eventually to be the defend ant’s undoing. Shows He Had Chance. To be sure, the State has not yet fixed the crime definitely on Frank— but it HAS definitely shown, unless its witnesses be impeached, which ts highly unlikely, that Leo Frank MIGHT have murdered Mary Phagan and that he DID have the opportunity to accomplish it. Having shown that the OPPOR TUNITY was there, and that the murder likely was consummated dur ing the time limits of that oppor tunity, the remaining elements of the case need but to be knitted properly together to make dark indeed the out look for Frank. Frank himself, Monteen Stover. Mrs. White and Dr. Harris—they to gether form a chain thus far ap parently strong and dangerous! That, from the standpoint of the defense. however, is the worst view to take of it. It must be remembered that the defense as yet has introduced no witnesses. Such advantage as it so far has gained—and it has won many oomte—it has gained by wringing frbm the State’s own witnesses mat ters* of fact favorable to Frank. When the defense comes :o tell its story it may be confidently antici pated that additional weak points in the State’s cave may be discovered. The only question is. will they be found SUFFICIENTLY weak to cause the entire chain to fall apart? Defense Seeks Weakest Link. A chain is, of course, oniy as strong as its weakest link. Will the defense he able to locate the State's weakest link? And having located it. will it. can it be strained to '.he point of giving way? That is the perplexing and grim puzzle that Rosser and Arnold are contemplating from one standpoint and to-day Dorsey and Hooper from the other. The black, forbidding shadow of the negro, Jim Conley, has fallen heavily athwart the courtroom in the old City Hall, where Frank is bat tling for his liberty, his good name and the restoration of his status as an upright and honorable man among his fellows. The State is paving th£ way to the climax of its case—it is leading up. and with considerable skill and adroitness, to the test of its biggest asset or its .most tremendous liability, as the case may be—Jim Conley, confessed accessory after the fact of Mary Phagan's murder and by many suspected of being the principal tc the murder. Somehow it seemed to me that Luther Rosser grew more and more cautious in his cross-examining Fri day and Saturday, and certainly Reu ben Arnold appeared to weigh well his words and carefully propound his questions. Dorsey Has Temper in Leash. Dorsey, too, has his tempre much more thoroughly in hand—and Hoop er? Hooper is the same as ever—smil ing. calm, deliberate, rarely speaking at all. save to whisper directing words into his associate’s ear now and then. When Jim Conley is on the stand, Leo Frank will be face to face with the crisis in# his trial—either Conley will leave the stand Frank's final de liverance and refuge, or his eternal damnation, on earth! For this is a battle in truth to -he very death—a battle in w'hich quar ter is being neither given nor asked! It means hope, and love, and life, and liberty to Frank, or it means ! I looked long and earnestly into the faces of those twelve "good men and true,” the "gentlemen of the jury” on Friday afternoon. To me, the Frank jury appears to be much above the average. A composite picture of It would indicate. I suspect, intelligence, level headedness, business knowledge and poise. If it is the sort of jury I think it is. it is just the sort of jury that should try a case of such unusual ‘quality as the one it now has in hand. i am assuming that a vast majority of Georgians are hoping sincerely to see the truth of this famous case es tablished—that it is largely an ab stract proposition to the average man. The point, however, is not so much what any one of us thinks—the point is what does that JURY think? The impressions that evidence pro duce are varied and sometimes marked. One never can exactly and precisely say which way it will cut. And right here my mind goes back involuntarily to Dr. Roy Harris, and his remarkable testimony. Undoubtedly the defense will have to put on its thinking cap, straight i i ; Rosser gently starting a battery of questions. v '4§ WU m m? me fm ■ m-m* % A LIFE DUE Rosser thundering, his face clouded by anger. J 0. B. KEELER. Roan Holding Scales of Justice With Steady Hand and firmly set, if it hopes not only to upset that testimony and discredit it as particularly and relatively in point, but to remove the profound impres sion it may have made upon the jury. It is, after all. largely upon mental impression—perhaps more often -than not—that jury verdicts are predicted The psychological receptiveness of the Jury frequently controls the finding. I doubt not. If Dr. Harris’ ♦estimonv has weighed heavily againstFrank in the mind of the jury, the defense will find It extremely difficult to remove that weight. The Solicitor General may have been far more astute and incisive, too. than some have thought, when, time and again, ho claimed to have been entrapped by his own witnesses —that they were not now swearing the same things that a few weeks ago they swore readily enough. Effect May Be Decisive. If the Solicitor has managed to get it into the minds of that jury that Frank needs protection against actu ally damaging circumstances, that witnesses deliberately have been drilled to protect him against sinister things, that witnesses have been tam pered with in his behalf—all of which things may be inferentially set up, without many genuine reasons there for being given—then a psychological effect will have been achieved that may prove dangerous in the extreme to the defendant. Now, I do not mean to say tlie State HAS succeeded in doing that, and I hardly see wherein those impressions would be warranted altogether in the minds of the jurymen, still Dorsey and Hooper are driving at SOME THING—and it may be they are driv ing at that exact psychological ef fect! And you never can tell. The way of a serpent upon a rock, of an eagle in the air, and of a man with a maid—these things have been said to be the strangest of all things But the fourth strangest thing, and there may be so many as four super latively strange things, is the way of a jury with a defendant at bar! Therefore, if Hooper and Dorsey have been seeking, through the clever was "nervous” ( ' s" Just after the manipulation of their own witnesses and through the still cleverer direct ing of the cross-examination into de sired channels, and if they have suc ceeded, which no man possibly may know now, the art employed has been consummately far-reaching and keen. It will brace up the amazing story of Conley wonderfully and make his tale the easier for the jury to accept as true, and it will in inverse ratio discount the defendants statement, moreover, if the Jury can be brought to that psychological status suggest ed in this article, if it be the true pur pose of the State to bring it* there. Situation Rests on “Ifs.” There are n good many "ifs" in this idea, to be sure—but an psychological situations are ouilded largely upon "ifs." That the State is undertaking to establish a psycnoldgical effect in a* least one other direction, too, Is evi dent in the way it insists, over and over, that Frank was "extremely nervous crime wa^committed—the idea being that if he was agitated it likely was because of his guilty conscience. The State has combated this won derfully well, In so far as the sub stance of its denials are concerned — and yet into this idea obtrudes the thought that maybe here, again, the State has been cleverer than the de fense has Imagined, by forcing the State rather to overdo Its hand in that direction! Now. these suggestions may be more or less elusive and hard to get hold of, but they are in no way impossi ble. Indeed, w r hen it is remembered that the State all along has been de veloping a rather weak circumstantial case against Frank always up to its star witness, Conley—at once both its hope and its despair—and that the story of that witnes^ is grimly gro tesque, in parts strenuously raining on the imagination, based, as »t Is in portions, upon admitted lies and mis representations. the great help and assistance to tne State of a mentally receptive jury may be, and doubtless will be. appreciated immediately ay the reader. In any and every aspect of the case it is but the simple ruth to say that both the State and the defense have been forced to tha skating on dangerously thin ice more than once so far. By L. F WOODRUFF. Emotion’s entire gamut is dally run on the screen of/ faces watching the Frank trial. A student of facial expression ian find anything he seeks by watching the throng of spectators a half hour. A glance at one man may show' a sne?r of hate as bitter as gall. His neighbor in the next seat will prob ably be smiling in amused content as if he were witnessing the antics of his favorite comedian. Looking to the left he may see fear as vividly depicted on a counte nance as trapped felon has ever felt. And another glance might show a spectator in studious contemplation as rapt £S that of a philosopher en deavoring to fathom a new frailty In human character. Men have been mad. and shown it, during the progress of Atlanta’s most famous criminal case. And men have shown that they were glad to the point of jubilation at the very same instant. Roan Utterly Impassive. But throughout the tedious hours and hours of the hearing, one man sits, listening to every word. And he has yet to display the fact that his emotions are any more affected by the dramatic trial in which he is a commanding figure than those of a business man going through the daily routine of his prosaic grind. That quality shows why the man is sitting there. If he were a man to show that his feelings were sway- ♦•<1 as the tide of battle turned first for one side and then the other, he would not be qualified for the emi nent position he holds. Judge L. S Roan Is performing the arduous duties of presiding Justice in the Frank case, because the people of Fulton County recognized that he is the man of the county’s 250,000 best | endowed by nature to perform this | task. His attitude throughout the hearing has shown that the people chose wise ly and well. Think of his position. It is one of supreme importance Just at this time, when passion and prejudice are more likely to rule than cool reason ing. It is his work to uphold the theory that Justice is blind, and that the courts of the land are the blindfold that darkens the vision of the goddess. He must see that the scales are evenly balanced. He must be sure that the sword Is sharp. There are scores, yes hundreds, of people in Atlanta to-day convinced absolutely of Franks guilt in the Phagan mystery, and it would take a power of Inconceivable magnitude to change their mental attitude. There are scores and hundreds right here who believe thoroughly and hon estly that Frank is innocent of any crime, and is as cruelly a persecuted person as the earth has known since the days of the martyrs. And so firm is this belief that it could not be shaken by dynamite or earthquake. No Doubt as to Fairness. Judge Roan’s position and his oath of office call on him to see that both of these classes are firmly convinced of one fact in common, and that Is that the case of I*eo M. Frank is be ing fairly, honestly) and effectively tiled according to the law and evi dence. When he does this, he is removing a tremendous amount of the poison in the case. People are too prone to hint that a man's money can as sure him of safety in any act he may commit. P opie are too likely to say that law and order becomes as nothing beneath a weight of pre judice. Every word that Judge Roan speaks is as eagerly listened to as the voice of a diva. His every action is watched hh eloselvNas those of the President of the United States aye by his secret service protectors Therefore, in action as well as in word, the Judge must be impartial. Therefore, he can not smile as one side or the other scores a point. He cfln not evince extraordinary interest if It is apparent that the lawyers are about to t**nr to shreds the story of a ! witness. He must make a mental pic ture of everything in the long- 1 drawn-out battle In order to give his j final instructions to the jury, but he j must not permit this picture to be I reflected on his face. And he has not. His rulings have been quick. They are spoken in a low voice. Just loud enough for counsel and witness to hear. In rendering a decision, he rarely straightens himself from the reclining attitude he assumes In the office chair. Heat Hard on Judge. He sits through the long hours, his right hand waving a huge palm leaf fan. though two electric fans are turned on the bench. He needs all three, for the courtroom is stifling hot, and Judge Roan is no longer young. Occasionally he mops a hair less spot on his high forehead with a handkerchief. Several times during each day dur ing the duller moments of the trial, he speaks a smiling word to some member of the bar, not connected with the case. w*ho passes the bench or exchanges pleasantries wdth a court attache. But his mind is never off the burn ing issue that he must play so im portant a part in deciding. The Juror’s life is not unmixed with care. Look him over next time you attend the Frank trial. Size up his little Job. Weigh his responsibility. Consider nis problems. And then, if seeking employment, go out and sign a contract to make little ones out of big ones. It's a more satisfactory way of earning $2 a day. The juror’s business is to collect evidence by the earful, sift the same separate the true from the false, and make It into a verdict as between the Stat of Georgia and Leo Frank. On the face of it, the plan is beau tifully simple. Rut the beauty Is only skin deep. You are recokning without the law yer* Here Entereth the Lawyer. The simple-minded layman -and that rating Includes the Juror—starts out with the Idea that the business of a lawyer Is to extract evidence from the witness in available form for proper consideration by the juror. It speedily develops that the full intent of counsel Is to prevent the witness from unburdening himself in any way whatsoever. The more ex pensive the counsel, the iess infor mation the opposition will be able to wheedle out of its star performers.* The method of blocking is objective —that is. it Is by means of objections. It appears that our system of juris prudence takes cognizance of the Juror as a mere babe in arms, not fit to assimilate the strong meat of evi dence straight. * How the Juror Is Spared. So he is sedulously raised on the bottle. Mr. Dorsey (for example) has a w it ness by whom he is aching to show that Leo Frank was nervous the morning he was apprised of the trag edy. Mr. Rosser and Mr. Arnold are equally positive that the witness is not competent to Judge if Mr. Frank was nervous. Also they are q-uite sure that the bottle-fed juror is ut terly incapable of deciding if the wit ness is competent to decide* if Mr. Frank was nervous. They do not Intend that the Juror shall endanger his delicate thinking apparatus by grappling with any such abstruse problem. So they fix it Up this way. Witness: "He insited on having some coffee.” Mr. Rosser: "I object to the use of the word ‘insisted.’ it manifestly is a conclusion of the witness, and as such has no place in the evi dence. I ask that the word be ruled out.” Objections Fix the Fact. Anil the court orders it ruled out. thereby fixing the circumstance firm ly in the mind of the juror. And then Mr. Dorsey twists the query around and gets the witness to state that Frank asked for coffee twice at his house and once at the factory. Just why that arangemeut suits the defense beter than the simple propo sition. that Frank insisted on the cofTee is not entirely plain—to the layman. But it seems that the juror is to be shielded from any breath of any thing not bearing strictly on tha guilt or innom> of the accused. Specific and accurate information being thus at a premium, the jure probably is amazed when Mr. Rosse vibrating with grief and indignatioi protests against Detective Scott read lug from some notes he made whil working directly on the case. The court also is shocked, but per mils Mr. Scott to "refresh his memc ri" by means of the notes and the retail th e product of such refresh ment by word of mouth. This is agreeable to Mr. Rosser an the court, but when Mr. Dorsey ol fers further to refresh Mr. Scott somewhat wilted recollection, M Rosser intimates at the top of a rc bust voice that such a thing shall h accomplished only over his (M Rosser's) inanimate form. And that promptly affords the bo! tie-fed juror some more evidence t ponder. Mr. Dorsey insists it is his right t “lead” the witness. The witness demands to know he is suspected of holding back. Mr. Dorsey declares he has bee trapped by the witness, and M Rosser appends th e somewhat doubt ful comment that Frank Hooper i a wise man. Here Are More Problems. Now, add this to the problems c the troubled juror: Is Mr. Scott balking? If so, has Mr. Dorsey the right t hold an ear of corn in front of him Has Mr. Dorsey been trapped? And. • in view of the foregoing, j or it not Mr. Hooper a wise man? Other problems for the exercise c the Frank juror on the side, as were, would include th e following: Should Mr. Dorsey he permitted t examine a witnes without interruj tlon by Mr. Rosser? Should Mr. Rosser be permitted t object ? If so, should Mr. Dorsey scowl whll Mr Rosser is objecting? Does Mr. Rosser consider whisky good remedy for indigestion? Would He Hide Evidence? Wood anybody think that Mr. Ros ser would have anything to do wit suppressing evidence, except in tY regular and approved objectiv method prescribed by law? Is Mr. Scott a trained sleuth? And one more thing that tends t lend an acrobatic cast to the mentt processes of the Frank juror. Once in u while—not very often, it' true—but once in a while somethin gets by Mr. Rosser and Mr. Arno> The witness may be quick on th trigger Or Mr. Dorsey may manag to fr*g up a subtle query wdth joker In it. And after the storm of objectlo has thundered Itself out and Mr. Ros ser is mopping |he signs of honei toil from his brow, and Mr. Dorse 1 is wearing an expression similar t thHt of a cat that knows all abot what happened to the canary—wh; then the court orders the stenogre pher to strike out the answer. And the obliging juror is instruct* to forget it. Yes? Would You Forget it, Too? Just suppose that you, being a honest and hard-working juror, trj ing in an honest and hard-workir wav to extract a morsel of real it formation from a jungle of cros* question® and crabbed answers an i objections and oratory and recrim ; nation—suppose that the, honest at j hard-working witness should beat ’ol j to it for once, and disgorge somethin ! really interesting. And then suppose the judge shoul tell you to wipe it right off yoi mental slate, and not remember it, i consider it, or think about it any moi forever. You would do it, would you not? Neither would we. The juror's life is not unmixed wi' care.