0899 Sheet – Supreme Court Georgia Appeals of Leo Frank, 1913, 1914

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46. Because the Court permitted the witness Mrs. J. J. Wardlaw, who before her marriage was Miss Lula McDonald, to be asked by the Solicitor-General the following questions and to make the following answers:
Q. You never knew of his improper relations with any of the girls at the factory?
A. No, sir.
Q. Now, did you ever, do you know, or did you ever hear of a girl who went with Mr. Frank on a street car to Hapeville the Saturday before Mary Phagan was murdered?
A. No, sir.
Q. On the same street car with Hermes Stanton and H. M. Baker and G. S. Adams?
A. No, sir.
Q. And about his putting his arm around her and trying to get her at various places to get off with him?
A. No, sir.
Q. And go to the woods with him?
A. No, sir.
Q. She was a little girl that got on at the corner of Forsyth and Hunter Streets, there where the car passes?
A. No, I don't know that.
Q. You never heard of it at all?
A. No, sir.
Q. The Saturday before?
A. No, sir.
Q. You say you have never heard of any act of immorality on the part of Mr. Frank prior to April 26, 1913?
A. No, sir, I did not.
Q. You never talked with Hermes Stanton or H. M. Baker, the conductor or motorman?
Q. I will put it that way then, you never heard that, the Saturday before little Mary Phagan met her death, Mr. Frank went out on the Hapeville car on which Hermes Stanton and H. M. Baker were in charge, and that he had his arm around the little girl, and that he endeavored at various places to get that little girl to get off the car and go to the woods with him?
A. No, sir.
Q. You never heard such a statement as that at all by anybody?
A. No, sir, I did not.

The defendant objected to the above questions made by the Solicitor-General, because while the witness denied any knowledge by hearsay or otherwise of the wrong asked about, the mere asking of such questions, the answers to which must have been irrelevant and prejudicial was harmful to the defendant, and the Court erred in permitting such questions to be asked, no matter what the answers were.

The Court further erred because, although the defendant had put his character in issue, the State could not reply by proof or reputation of improper or immoral conduct with women. The reputation for lasciviousness is not involved in that general character that is material where the charge is murder.
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