317 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [407 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

LEO M. FRANK. 285

Among the speakers, and but for the masterly effort of my brother, Arnold, I almost wish it had ended with no speaking. My condition is such that I can say but little; my voice is husky and my throat almost gone. But for my interest in this case and my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would not undertake to speak at all.

I want to repeat what my friend, Arnold, said so simply. He said this jury is no mob. The attitude of the juror's mind is not that of the mind of the man who carelessly walks the streets. My friend, Hooper, must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta. We walk the street carelessly and we meet our friends and do not recognize them; we are too much absorbed in our own interests. Our minds wander in flights of fancy or in fits of reverence; we may mean no harm to ourselves, nor to our friends, but we are careless. No oath binds us when we walk the streets.

Men, you are different; you are set aside; you ceased when you took your juror's oath to be one of the rollicking men of the streets; you were purged by your oath. In old pagan Rome, the women laughed and chattered on the streets as they went to and fro, but there were a few—the Vestal Virgins—they cared not for the gladiatorial games, nor the strife of the day. So it is with you men, set apart; you care not for the chatter and laughter of the rabble; you are unprejudiced, and it is your duty to pass on a man's life with no passion and no cruelty, but as men purged by an oath from the careless people of the streets. You are to decide from the evidence, with no fear of a hostile mob and no thought of favor to anyone.

What suggestion comes into a man's mind when he thinks of a crime like this? And what crime could be more horrible than this one? What punishment too great for the brute in human form who committed it and who excited this community to a high pitch?

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