00:00Conley's status in Fagan case may be changed Wednesday. The Atlanta Journal, June 11, 1913.
00:05Petition will be presented to Judge Roan by Solicitor Dorsey, but its nature is not made
00:10known. Rosser's card causes activity behind scenes. Negro may be put back in the tower.
00:15Solicitor Dorsey says, I am trying to run State's case myself. The report became current Wednesday
00:21afternoon shortly after three o'clock that the new development in the Fagan case would be a
00:26withdrawal by the state of its petition in court, where under James Conley, the Negro is held as a
00:31material witness. Shortly before three o'clock, William Smith, attorney for the Negro, and Solicitor
00:37Dorsey appeared at the courthouse together for this purpose, it was said. Attorney Smith does not want
00:43the Negro confined in the Fulton County jail, where he declares he was menaced during the one night that
00:48he spent there after his affidavit became public. There has been no insistence from Attorney Smith.
00:53It is said that any damage would ever be made in the status of the Negro. As the result of
00:59the
00:59clash between the prosecution and the defense of Leo M. Frank over James Conley, it is expected that
01:05the Negro's legal status will be changed in some way, probably Wednesday afternoon. It is also barely
01:11possible that Conley will be indicted Thursday by the grand jury as an accessory after the fact of
01:16Mary Fagan's murder, but this is not considered probable. Conley is now at police headquarters,
01:21held by authority of an order from Judge L.S. Roan of the Criminal Division of the Superior Court.
01:27Conley is held as a material witness in the case against Frank. The Negro sweeper was transferred
01:33soon after he made his sensational confession, charging Frank with being the principal in the
01:38Fagan murder from police headquarters to the tower, where he remained about 24 hours. Then he was
01:43transferred again on a superior court order to police headquarters, his attorney, William M. Smith,
01:49consenting to the move. The obvious reason for the transfer was to prevent the Negroes talking to
01:54interviewers who are allowed into the jail if the prisoner has no objection to talking to them.
01:59At police headquarters, only the detective and sometimes the prisoner's lawyer is allowed to see
02:04him. Conley's attorney, William M. Smith, stated Wednesday that he would prefer for the Negro to be
02:10inserated at police headquarters rather than at the tower. Jailers can protect him. The reason assigned
02:17by the detectives for removing Conley from the tower was his own statement to the effect that visitors
02:22at the tower had annoyed him as they passed his cell. It is arguer, however, that the jailers can
02:28protect the Negro if he is held in the tower, and if it is decided that from a strictly legal
02:33sense there
02:33is no authority for holding Conley at headquarters Wednesday night will probably find him in the tower
02:38again held as a material witness. As to the probability of the grand juries indicting the
02:44man either as an accessory or a principal, little can be said with any authority. Several of the
02:50individual jurors are said to be interesting themselves in the matter, and many inquiries have
02:55been made as to the reason for the prosecuting official's failure to bring a bill against the
02:59Negro before the jury. It is certain, however, that no bill charging Conley WTIH being a principal
03:06will be presented by the solicitor's office unless demanded by the grand jury. The interest of the
03:12individual jurors makes it probable there will be action in the near future. What Dorsey says,
03:19Asked if Conley would be taken before the grand jury to tell his story to the citizens who indicted
03:24Frank for Mary Fagan's murder, Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey said simply,
03:28I am trying to run the state's case by myself. L.H. Beck, the foreman of the jury, stated that
03:34the jury
03:34would take up, continued on page 6, Colonel 7. Conley's status in Fagan's case may be changed
03:40Wednesday, continued from page 1. During the present week, only the matters presented to it
03:45by the solicitor. Relative to the Conley matter itself, the grand jury foreman said that it was
03:50a criminal case of the type usually acted upon by the grand jury, only when presented to it by the
03:56solicitor. As to whether or not the grand jury would take the matter up of its own initiative next
04:00week, Mr. Beck would make no statement. Mr. Rosser's position. Relative to the lack of grand
04:07jury action in the Conley case, Mr. Rosser, in his first statement since the Fagan investigation
04:12commenced, said, No one has been rude enough to bring this negro before the grand jury,
04:17nor indeed to make any charge against him. After the statement of this negro, and in view of all the
04:23evidence which so strongly points to him as the slayer of little Mary Fagan, is the grand jury to leave
04:28him without charge or investigation to be wet nursed by Lanford until Frank's trial? Or is it
04:34the purpose to keep the negro's case from the grand jury in the nature of an offered reward to spur
04:39him
04:39on to swear his worst against the white man? Would it not be just and decent to bring this negro's
04:45case
04:45before the grand jury, and let that body hear his confession, so that it can then decide whether
04:50the negro should then be indicted?
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