Atlanta Magazine, July 2019, “Did Leo Frank kill Mary Phagan? 106 years later, we might finally find out for sure.” A review of the Leo Frank case could re-open old wounds—and exonerate an innocent man by Steve Oney
[Leo Frank Flickr Curator Commentary:
Paul Howard’s DA website issued a press release on April 26, 1913, announcing the formation of "The Conviction Integrity Unit" to review the Leo Frank trial and other contentious criminal cases, mainly of convictions with respect to people who are presently incarcerated.
Regrettably, old emotional wounds are seemingly being torn asunder, now, with the launch of this "Conviction Integrity Unit", Atlanta-CIU hereafter, because news reports are saying its initial formation was inspired by the Leo Frank Case and because it is reviewing a trial where all those participants who were alive as teens and adults during the 1913 episode, are now long deceased in 2019. Multitudes of Georgians, especially Atlantans, see the Atlanta-CIU as a corrupt ruse to exonerate Leo Frank.
Many people in Georgia quietly believe "THE FIX IS IN" suggesting in slang the Atlanta-CIU is some kind of "Kangaroo Court Committee" as one local African-American resident, put it, one who wished to remain anonymous. Many Georgians of all racial backgrounds are saying they have no doubts the Atlanta-CIU will maliciously exonerate Leo Frank at the behest of 2.5% of the population and their allies (I believe this percentage might be an anti-Semitic allusion to Jews and their sychophants or psychophants if you will).
The following bracketed commentary below was submitted by a student of the Leo Frank case who gives the impression the Atlanta-CIU will be fraught with pro-Leo bias, ADL machinations, SPLC trickery, political bullying, Jewish-Gentile relational challenges, and "political correctness" to the extreme.]
[Email contribution and recommended reading: Steve Oney has a history of being sloppy with the facts of the Frank-Phagan case. Just fact check what he has said orally or penned about the epic-saga. The ‘Conviction Integrity Unit’ (C.I.U.) wasn’t formed in early May 2019 as Oney claims, it was created April 26, 2019, on the 106th anniversary Mary Phagan was sodomized and strangled to death by Leo Frank.
I think Oney might be intentionally obscuring the real date of the founding of this Kangaroo Leo Frank exoneration tribunal (C_I_U), due to the hideous optics of it enabling the unconstitutional exonerating process of a guilty rapist-pedophile sex killer and the group being responsible for its enablement, being founded on the anniversary of Mary Phagan’s slaying. This is more than a double injustice for Mary Phagan and her familial descendants, this is an injustice to the Implicit SPIRIT of the Georgia and U.S. Constitution.
The Fulton County DA, Paul Howard, announced the formation of C.I.U. for investigation into controversial cases on April 26, 2019, just see the press releases and news articles in the bibliography-appendix section for proof.
Amazon: If you read the one star reviews of Steve Oney’s 2003 book "And the Dead Shall Rise", on Amazon, you get a clear picture that Steve Oney fails to articulate the significance of Monteen Stover’s trial testimony in late July of 1913 and State Exhibit B, Leo Frank’s unsworn deposition to Atlanta Police recorded on Monday, April 28, 1913, in the presence of his attorneys Luther Rosser and Herbert Haas. Like this and more, Steve Oney lies by omission concerning 99% of Leo Frank’s Georgia Supreme Court legal paperwork which are just a couple hundred shy of being 2,000 pages long.
1964 Mary Phagan Bite Wound Hoax
Steve Oney not only lies by omission in his 2003 book, but he falsifies evidence like his pushing of the Mary Phagan Bitemark Hoax. None of the autopsy reports about Mary Phagan mention anything about bitemarks all over her body. This was a manufactured hoax by Pierre van Paassen in 1964 (his book ‘to number our days’ 64′) and Oney promotes it as fact. Oney can not be trusted. Oney has made it clear he is essentially a Leo Frank partisan activist.
The American Mercury: Required reading is a short and concise review of Steve Oney’s book at The American Mercury, titled "Who Really Solved the Mary Phagan Murder Case?". People should also listen the audiobook series by The American Mercury on the Leo Frank Trial and a podcast serial, which is 29 weekly half-hour episodes of ‘The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, V3, The Leo Frank Case, The Lynching of a Guilty Man.]
end of emailed commentary.
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Article begins….
Leo Frank on trial in August 1913
PHOTOGRAPH BY ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION/AP
IMAGES
Atlanta Magazine, "Did Leo Frank kill Mary Phagan? 106 years later, we might finally find out for sure." A review of the Leo Frank case could reopen old wounds—and exonerate an innocent man, By STEVE ONEY – MAY 31, 2019
In early May, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced that he will reopen one of the most notorious criminal proceedings in American history: the trial of National Pencil Company superintendent Leo M. Frank for the murder of child laborer Mary Phagan. The review will be supervised by the newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit, a panel created to look into cold cases. Former governor Roy Barnes will serve as a consultant. Standing at Howard’s side during a news conference, Barnes said, “There is no doubt in my mind that we’ll prove that Leo Frank is not guilty.”
If the judgment of time is the deciding factor, the unit will indeed find Frank innocent. In the years since the April 26, 1913 murder, a consensus has emerged about what happened in Frank’s downtown Atlanta factory that day: The killer was Jim Conley, a black janitor who was the state’s star witness against Frank. While researching And the Dead Shall Rise, my 2003 book on the case, I too reached the same conclusion. This is not, of course, how Georgians first saw it. An all-white jury accepted Conley’s word over that of Frank, his Jewish boss, and the judge sentenced Frank to die by hanging.
The spectacle of a Jim Crow–era court relying on a black man’s testimony to convict a white man of murder was remarkable, but the nation remembers the case because of what happened next. Following extensive coverage in the press and appeals that ran all the way to the United States Supreme Court, Governor John Slaton commuted Frank’s death sentence in June 1915. Shortly thereafter, a group of men from Marietta, Phagan’s hometown, abducted Frank from the Georgia prison farm in Milledgeville, drove him to Marietta, and lynched him. Several months later, the Ku Klux Klan, which had disbanded following Reconstruction, reestablished itself at a cross-burning atop Stone Mountain.
The Frank case opened a deep vein of anti-Semitism in America, unleashing furies that remain part of the national psyche. (The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 to combat those furies.) As a result, any discussion of the subject is difficult. Emotions about it run strong, and, while a majority now believes the factory superintendent was guiltless, others resent what they regard as a knee-jerk acceptance of that fact. Howard’s investigators will need to keep this in mind if they are to vindicate Frank. The affair pitted Jew against Gentile, white against black, rural against urban. Regardless of the outcome, not everyone will be happy.
Attempts to clear Frank’s name are nothing new. In 1982, Atlanta lawyers Charles Wittenstein and Dale Schwartz sought a posthumous pardon for him. The application was based on the revelations of 83-year-old Alonzo Mann, who as a 14-year-old was Frank’s office assistant. In a deposition, Mann swore that on the day of the murder, he entered the factory lobby and saw Conley carrying Phagan’s body. Conley, Mann said, threatened that if he mentioned this to anyone, he’d kill him.
Mann’s story was not only dramatic, but it seemed to give the lie to a central part of Conley’s testimony. Conley asserted that Frank murdered Phagan, who worked for pennies an hour on the factory building’s second floor, after she resisted his sexual advances. He said that Frank then recruited him to cover up the crime and that he transported the body by elevator directly to the factory basement, where the police discovered it the next day. According to Conley, he was never in the lobby with the body. Mann’s statement refuted that.
Powerful as this was, the application for a posthumous pardon—which was opposed by the Phagan family and relatives of Hugh Dorsey, Frank’s prosecutor—failed. The Georgia Pardon and Paroles board announced, “After exhaustive review and many hours of deliberation, it is impossible to decide conclusively the guilt or innocence of Leo M. Frank. For the board to grant a pardon, the innocence of the subject must be shown conclusively.” The board felt Conley may simply have lied about the route he took to get the body to the basement and that Frank could still have committed the murder.
In 1986, Wittenstein and Schwartz reapplied to the board. This time, they sought an apology from Georgia for its failure to protect Frank from the lynch party. The board agreed, but the factory superintendent’s conviction remained intact.
Other efforts to vindicate Frank have proven just as futile. The first came in 1922 when Pierre Van Paassen, a young Dutch journalist working at the Atlanta Constitution, became obsessed with the story. While going through Dorsey’s files, he discovered what he determined to be a telling discrepancy between photos of bite wounds on Phagan’s body and Frank’s dental x-rays. The girl’s murderer, he determined, could not have been the factory superintendent: The photos and the x-rays did not match.
The Constitution, capitulating to pressure from Atlanta Jews fearful of stirring up anti-Semitic sentiments, refused to print Van Paassen’s findings. Not until the 1964 publication of his memoir, To Number Our Days, was the evidence that Van Paassen thought absolved Frank made public. But still no action was taken.
In 1943, Atlanta lawyer Arthur Powell, in a book entitled I Can Go Home Again, asserted that he possessed material exonerating Frank, yet once more Georgia’s Jewish community argued against revealing the information, which was said to implicate Conley. “I accept full responsibility for advising Judge Powell to destroy the memorandum,” wrote fellow Atlanta lawyer Max Goldstein. “It would have merely resulted in renewing the agitation.”
Again and again, in other words, those hoping to prove Frank’s innocence have hit a wall, which leads to the question hovering over the latest attempt: Why is this time different from others?
The involvement of Roy Barnes could provide that difference. The former governor is a native of the Marietta area, and his wife is a granddaughter of a Frank lynch party member. Barnes has a deep understanding of the stain the affair has left on Georgia. He wants to confront the troubled past and bring the truth into the open.
The question is how. Conley disappeared from the public record after a 1941 gambling arrest. There is no death certificate for him. Dorsey’s dossiers on the case, which included the dental x-rays that intrigued Van Paassen, were lost or destroyed sometime during the 1960s following the suicide of his son, James, the family archivist. Even the trial transcript is missing.
There is, however, one promising source: a study conducted by Conley’s lawyer, William M. Smith. The morning after Phagan’s murder, the police found two strange notes by her body. Conley swore that Frank dictated the notes to him in hopes of directing suspicion at another black factory worker. The story was improbable, but in the heat of the moment, the jury and most Georgians believed it. Following the trial, Smith examined the notes, comparing them to other written and spoken remarks by Conley. He determined that the notes, contrary to Conley’s testimony, were not dictated by Frank. They feature Conley’s syntax, misspellings, and slang. According to Smith, they are Conley’s compositions.
Smith’s study of the notes is on file at the Georgia Archives. It persuasively points the finger at Conley, it played a role in Slaton’s commutation decision, and it convinced me. Dusted off and presented anew, the study could establish Frank’s innocence as not just a matter of opinion but of fact. Howard and Barnes should start there.
This article appears in our July 2019 issue of Atlanta Magazine.
Source:
Atlanta Magazine, "Did Leo Frank kill Mary Phagan? 106 years later, we might finally find out for sure." A review of the Leo Frank case could reopen old wounds—and exonerate an innocent man
BY STEVE ONEY – MAY 31, 2019
www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/did-leo-fra…
end of article.
Required Reading:
District Attorney Paul Howard, Atlanta, Ga (retrieved June, 2019)
www.atlantafultoncountyda.org/paul-l-howard-jr/
Paul L. Howard, Jr.
Fulton County District Attorney
Currently serving his sixth term as Fulton County District Attorney, Paul L. Howard, Jr. is a visionary and trailblazer whose innovative ideas have left an indelible mark on the local justice system and the community at large.
Mr. Howard first assumed the Office of Fulton County District Attorney in January 1997—becoming the first African-American to be elected District Attorney in the State of Georgia. He succeeded Lewis Slaton, who held this position for 31 years. Prior to being elected District Attorney, Mr. Howard had served as Fulton County’s Solicitor General for four years.
During his tenure as District Attorney, Mr. Howard has achieved a wide range of ambitious goals, transforming the DA’s Office and revolutionizing the county criminal justice system in the process. Some highlights include the top-to-bottom administrative restructuring of an antiquated office, featuring the installation of Deputy District Attorneys who provide day-to-day supervision of the Office’s divisions; the creation of specialized prosecution units, including Major Felony, Crimes Against Women & Children, White Collar Crime, the Multi-Agency Cold Case Squad, Public Integrity and the Trial Division. Additionally, Mr. Howard has established the Fulton County “Complaint Room” and, with it, has implemented a front-end case screening operation that has streamlined and expedited the felony charging process- a change that is saving the county millions of dollars in jail housing costs annually.
Mr. Howard’s innovative ideas extended beyond the courthouse to the community with the advent of “Community Prosecution,” a concept that strategically places Assistant District Attorneys in satellite offices throughout the County. Under the Community Prosecution umbrella, Mr. Howard has implemented several successful initiatives over the years, including the widely popular Citizens’ CourtWatch program. Implemented in 2004, the grass-roots program serves as a vehicle for community engagement in the criminal justice system. As Community Prosecutors track repeat offenders and cases of interest in their respective communities, citizens are kept abreast of pending cases and are invited to observe and participate (at the Court’s discretion) in judicial proceedings. Neighborhood Fresh Start and the Multi-Jurisdictional Burglary Task Force are other notable Community Prosecution efforts.
District Attorney Howard also has a passion for youth and creating programs that address their needs in unique and positive ways. Among his collection of youth initiatives are the Junior District Attorney and Project Legal Lives programs. Each offers elementary and middle school students hands-on lessons in civics and law. The Perkerson Reading Program, Partnership for Perfect Attendance, Project Turn Around and Teen Court round out the list of other key youth programs implemented during Mr. Howard’s tenure.
Mr. Howard’s law career began in 1976 with the City of Atlanta as an Assistant Solicitor. A year later, he became the City’s Deputy Solicitor. He remained in this position until 1980 when he joined Fulton County as an Assistant District Attorney in Mr. Slaton’s office where he served eight years. Upon leaving the District Attorney’s Office, Mr. Howard worked for three years as an attorney for the Atlanta law firm of Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson, Edward & Patterson, before becoming Fulton County’s Solicitor General.
Active in professional and community activities, Mr. Howard is a Director-at-Large of the National Association of District Attorneys (NDAA). He is also a member of the National Black Prosecutors Association, the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials and 100 Black Men of Atlanta. Mr. Howard has also served as chairperson of the Gate City Bar Association’s Government Law Section and the Atlanta University Criminal Justice Public Service Institute Courts Committee. During his administration, former Governor Roy Barnes appointed District Attorney Howard to his Commission on Certainty in Sentencing, a perfect complement to Howard’s previous service as co-chair of the Senate Structured Sentencing Commission.
Mr. Howard has received numerous awards and recognition for his service to the citizens of Fulton County. Among his recent accolades is the “Zenith Award for Service to the Community” given by the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys (GABWA). Mr. Howard has also been recognized by Atlanta Victim Assistance, Inc. with the Paula Bevington “Helping Hand Award” and by the renowned Butler Street YMCA with its “Legacy of Firsts” award. In 2008, Mr. Howard was inducted into the Gate City Bar Association’s Hall of Fame, joining the ranks of other legal notables such as former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, former Governor Roy Barnes and famed attorney Donald Lee Hollowell. Mr. Howard is also a past recipient of the prestigious “Trumpet Award” and has received other national acknowledgements including the “Humane Law Enforcement Award” given by The Humane Society of the United States. He was also honored with the “Good Guy” award from the Georgia Womens’ Political Caucus, the Atlanta Community Prevention Coalition’s “Outstanding Effort to Stop the Violence” award and the Gammon Theological Seminary’s “Outstanding Community Service” award. The Atlanta Business Chronicle has also recognized Mr. Howard numerous times by in its annual “Who’s Who in Law & Accounting” issue. He was also named one of the “50 Most Influential Georgians” by Georgia Informer magazine.
A cum laude graduate of Morehouse College in political science, Mr. Howard received the school’s Marvin C. Magnum Legal Achievement Award. His exemplary undergraduate performance also earned him an academic scholarship to Emory University’s School of Law. While completing his graduate work at Emory, Mr. Howard was elected president of the Black American Law Students’ Association and later vice president of the Student Bar Association.
Paul Howard is a native of Midville, Georgia. He is married to the former Petrina Moody and has three children.
www.atlantafultoncountyda.org/paul-l-howard-jr/
* * * * * * *
Critical Commentary:
The American Mercury Review of Steve Oney’s Monograph on the Leo Frank Case:
Who Really Solved the Mary Phagan Murder Case?
theamericanmercury.org/2012/10/who-really-solved-the-mary…
Amazon Books
Reviews on Amazon about Steve Oney’s book
www.amazon.com/Dead-Shall-Rise-Murder-Lynching/product-re…
Further Reading
Georgia’s First Ever Conviction Integrity Unit (April 26, 2019)
patch.com/georgia/atlanta/georgias-first-ever-conviction-…
Harvard Nieman Scholar, Steve Oney, Class of 1982
nieman.harvard.edu/stories/featured-fellow-steve-oney/
The Lynching of Leo Frank by Steve Oney, Esquire Magazine September 1985, pages 90 to 104.
archive.org/details/steveOneyTheLynchingOfLeoFrankEsquire…
The scholarly mainstream origin of the "Hang the Jew Death Chanting Hoax": Leo M. Frank and the American Jewish Community by Leonard Dinnerstein, 1968, Jewish American Archive Journal, V. 20, N.2.
archive.org/details/LeoFrankAndTheAmericanJewishCommunity
The American Mercury: www.theamericanmercury.org
The Leo Frank Research Library www.leofrank.info
Social Media
Steve Oney on Twitter twitter.com/steveoneywriter
Associated Press (AP) April 26, 2019
Fulton district attorney creates conviction integrity unit, April 26, 1913
ATLANTA (AP) — The top prosecutor in Fulton County says his office is creating a unit to reexamine questionable convictions, which he says is the first of its kind in the state.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard on Friday issued a news release announcing the establishment of a conviction integrity unit. He says the purpose of such units is to investigate and fix wrongful convictions and to establish policies and procedures to learn from any errors that are identified.
Howard says the unit will investigate claims of innocence to see whether new evidence or facts indicate a substantial probability that someone convicted of a crime is not guilty.
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Georgia Governmental PRESS RELEASE April 26, 2019:
www.atlantafultoncountyda.org/fulton-county-district-atto…
April 26, 2019 Office of Public Affairs
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office is in search of a
Director to lead the department
Atlanta—Today, Fulton County District Attorney, Paul L. Howard, Jr., is pleased to announce the creation of a CONVICTION INTEGRITY UNIT. Currently, the District Attorney’s Office is searching for a qualified candidate to serve as the Director of this critical unit which will be the first of its kind in the State of Georgia.
DESCRIPTION OF CIU:
Across the country, District Attorney’s Offices are increasingly creating Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs) to re-examine questionable convictions and to guard against future conviction error. We believe prosecutors can and should be leading the charge to ensure the public has confidence in criminal convictions. The many proven cases of wrongful convictions and their known causes demonstrate that more needs to be done to guard against such errors. Conviction Integrity Units must investigate and remedy wrongful convictions, and they must also establish policies and procedures to learn from the errors identified, so the criminal justice system is strengthened.
As such, the Fulton County CONVICTION INTEGRITY UNIT will investigate claims of actual innocence to determine whether new evidence or facts give rise to a substantial probability that the convicted defendant was not the person who committed the offense for which they were convicted. The CIU will investigate claims of actual innocence or wrongful convictions by convicted defendants who have already been through their trial and appellate processes. The CIU will review cases in which there is new factual, physical, or forensic evidence. The unit will also review cases in which there is relevant evidence that went untested at the time of trial or some other new evidence that a person was convicted wrongfully. Cases must fall into at least one of these four categories to be considered for re-investigation.
Alleged Misconduct on Part of Prosecutor/Law Enforcement Officer
Forensic Testing of Relevant Evidence
Sentence Modifications Due to Nature of
Offense/Defendant’s Lack of Criminal History
Cases Determined to Warrant Review in “Interest of Justice”
CASE EXAMPLE:
It is imperative that the integrity of the convictions in Fulton County is maintained and that innocent individuals are not imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. There are specific examples of the value of a well-run, independent Conviction Integrity Unit including the case of Frederick Gant. Gant was convicted and sentenced to Life in Prison for the November 27, 2002 murders of Jonathan Wilder and Zerious Jordan based upon false witness testimony.
At the time of the murders, no one came forward to police and the case went cold for 11 years. In 2013, a man from the neighborhood, Major Smith, called police and said he witnessed the crime. Smith identified Gant as the shooter and the case was indicted. Smith testified at trial and Gant was convicted of both murders. It was later discovered that Smith was in jail at the time of the shooting. The defense lawyer contacted the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and DA Paul Howard consented to a new trial and implemented safeguards to vet future informants. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office re-tried the case without Major Smith and Gant was acquitted.
The DA’s Office indicted Smith, and he eventually agreed to a plea. Smith was sentenced to 10 years to serve 5 in prison. Following his plea, Smith said everyone knew Gant killed the two victims, but they were too afraid to come forward.
HOW IT WORKS:
Submissions will be analyzed by the Conviction Integrity Unit and must meet the following criteria before the unit conducts an in-depth review.
The conviction must have been in the Fulton County Superior Court
There must be a claim of actual innocence or wrongful conviction, and the claim of actual innocence must be predicated on a factual matter, not a purely legal issue.
The claimant must provide new evidence of actual innocence capable of being investigated and potentially substantiated, not a legal argument.
Case records needed for re-investigation of the claim must exist and be available for review.
The claim must not be frivolous.
The claimant must agree to fully cooperate with the unit, including being interviewed by members of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, and providing the State with any and all necessary documents or evidence that the claimant considers relevant and material.
Decisions as to whether the CIU will re-open the case investigation, how the claim will be investigated, and how the claim will be resolved are made at the discretion of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and are not reviewable by any court. There is no timeframe by which claims presented to the CIU will be resolved, but the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office will make every effort to expedite the resolution of each claim. The State will not consent to the vacation of a conviction on grounds of actual innocence unless the reinvestigation of the case clearly and convincingly establishes the claimant’s actual innocence based on the existence of credible evidence.
A panel made up of eight members including (3) Assistant District Attorneys from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, who are solely assigned to the unit (1) outside defense attorney, (1) attorney from the Georgia Innocence Project, (1) Fulton County Minister, (1) attorney/administrator from a local college and/or law school, and (1) attorney from the Georgia Chapter of the NAACP will review cases received by the office to determine whether or not they warrant re-investigation.
The panel will submit its recommendation to the Director of the Conviction Integrity Unit who will report directly to Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. for a final decision. The Director of the CIU will also work directly with the District Attorney’s Office to proactively prevent convictions that could potentially require a later review by the unit.
OTHER CIUs:
According to a study by the University of Michigan Law School, University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society, and the Michigan State University College of Law, there were 33 Conviction Integrity Units in 2017. The study shows rapid growth in the number of CIUs and CIU exonerations since 2007. CIUs were involved in a total of 42 exonerations in 2017, but in 2016, there was a record of 72, due to a series of guilty-plea drug exonerations in Harris County, Texas. Conviction Integrity Units have been involved in 269 exonerations through 2017, according to the study.
FIRST CASE AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:
Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. has already announced that the Wayne Williams/Atlanta Child Murders case will be the first to undergo an in-depth review by the newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit.
“Some within the criminal justice system here in Fulton County have said that my office is taking a significant risk by creating and forming a Conviction Integrity Unit. Some believe we are exposing ourselves to greater scrutiny and criticism by sanctioning an independent review of our cases. However, it is my belief that a conviction based upon truth and justice will withstand any scrutiny. It is my belief that the greatest risk is not allowing truth and justice to direct your decisions.”
Paul L. Howard, Jr.
Fulton County District Attorney
JOB POSTING/DESCRIPTION:
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office is currently searching for a Director to serve as the leader of the Conviction Integrity Unit. Anyone interested in applying for this position is asked to do so through the Careers section of the Fulton County District Attorney’s website. The job description for the Director of the Conviction Integrity Unit is listed below:
www.atlantafultoncountyda.org/careers/
Quotes Regarding the Creation of the Conviction Integrity Unit:
“I am pleased to see that Georgia stands for justice. Justice is putting those who commit crimes behind bars and making sure the innocent remain free. Justice is not blind, and the creation of the Conviction Integrity Unit will make sure that any errors that cost an innocent person their freedom are remedied. I speak as not just a lawyer but as a board member of the Southern Center for Human Rights.”
Attorney L. Chris Stewart
“As representatives of ‘the people,’ prosecutors have a responsibility to ensure that the guilty, and only the guilty, are convicted. Included in that citizenry are both the victims of crime and those accused. As every prosecutor is (or should be) taught, her primary responsibility is to seek justice.
Without an honest and ethical search for the truth, she cannot fulfill that obligation. This search for justice is nothing new to Mr. Howard, as he has been a leader in the efforts to increase transparency and confidence in the criminal justice system as far back as his formation of the first Public Integrity Unit in the state which was implemented just a few years after being first elected to office.
During my time as a prosecutor under his leadership, the phrase often heard in staff meetings was that we must “do the right thing.” The formation of the first Conviction Integrity Unit in the State is perfectly aligned with that mantra, and I am looking forward to working with its Director in taking this important step in safeguarding public trust in the work of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.”
Melissa D. Redmon
Director, Prosecutorial Justice Program/UGA School of Law
Ms. Redmon will serve as the principal consultant for the FCDA in the formation of the Conviction Integrity Unit
“It is of foremost importance to ensure that each case is handled with its proper due diligence. The people of Fulton County must have confidence in the just outcome of each case; therefore, we applaud this step by Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard to review previous cases for possible wrongful convictions. Hopefully, this innovative measure will ensure the public’s belief that the Criminal Justice System can be fair for all citizens.”
Attorney Gerald Griggs
First Vice-President, Atlanta NAACP
More research:
Leo Frank Research Library www.leofrank.org
Further Information about Mary Phagan:
Little Mary Phagan Memorial and Research Website
www.littlemaryphagan.com/
Phagan Family Facebook Group on Mary Phagan
www.facebook.com/leofrankandlittlemaryphagan
Posted by Leo Max Frank on 2019-06-26 03:22:17
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