0882 Sheet – Supreme Court Georgia Appeals of Leo Frank, 1913, 1914

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Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

The Court: "Well, he knows what he is asking him."
Upon this suggestion of the Court, that the Solicitor knew what he was doing, the spectators in the court-room applauded, creating quite a demonstration.

Mr. Arnold again complained of the conduct of the spectators in the courtroom. The Court gave no relief, except directing the Sheriff to find out who was making the noise, to which Sheriff replied that he could maintain order only by clearing the court-room.

25. Because the Court erred in admitting, over the defendant's objection, made at the time the testimony was offered, that it was illegal, immaterial and irrelevant, the introduction of certain glass bottles containing partly digested cabbage, which resulted from tests made on other parties by the witness, Dr. Harris, wherein the cabbage which he claimed to be cooked the same as was the cabbage eaten by Mary Phagan, and it had remained in the stomach of such other parties from 30 to 50 minutes before it was taken out by means of a stomach pump.

The purpose of these experiments was to show the state of digestion of this cabbage in comparison with the state of digestion of the cabbage taken from the stomach of Mary Phagan, so as to sustain the contention of the State that Mary Phagan was killed within 30 or 40 minutes after eating the cabbage and bread.

The Court admitted these samples of partly digested cabbage taken from the stomach of others, as aforesaid, and in doing so, committed error for the reasons above stated, and for the further reason that there was no evidence, as the defendant's counsel contend, that the same circumstances and conditions surrounded these other parties in the eating and digestion of the cabbage as surrounded Mary Phagan in the eating and digestion on her part and no evidence that the stomachs of these other parties were in the same condition as was Mary Phagan's.

26. Because the Court, in permitting the witness, Harry Scott, to testify over the objection of defendant, made at the time the testimony was offered, that same was irrelevant, immaterial and not binding upon the defendant, that he did not get any information from anyone connected with the National Pencil Company that the negro Conley could write, but that he got his information as to that from entirely outside sources, and wholly disconnected with the National Pencil Company.

The Court permitted this testimony to be given over the objections above stated, and in doing so, for the reasons herein stated, committed error.

This was prejudicial to the defendant, because the negro Conley at first denied his ability to write and the discovery that he could write was the State contended, the first step towards connecting Conley with the crime, and the Solicitor contended in his argument to the jury that the fact that the Pencil Company authorities knew Conley could write and did not disclose
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