Saturday, 20th December 1913: Frank Lawyers Reopen Attack On Dorsey, The Atlanta Georgian

DISTORTION OF FACTS IS ALLEGED

Solicitor's Statement as to Time Slip Taken From Factory Is Vigorously Assailed.

Attorneys for Leo M. Frank announced Friday that they were engaged in the preparation of a supplemental brief, in which they proposed to call to the attention of the Supreme Court of Georgia portions of Solicitor General Dorsey's argument and brief, which, they assert, are filled with glaring misstatements and misrepresentations.

One of the statements of the Solicitor which the defense is attacking most vigorously in its supplemental brief is in reference to the time slip taken out of the clock by Frank the morning after the murder of Mary Phagan in the National Pencil Factory.

The Solicitor claimed that this time slip never reached the hands of the authorities, and that another had been substituted for it with three punches missing in order to throw suspicion on Newt Lee, the night watchman.

Prank's counsel insist in the brief they are preparing that this is willful and inexcusable perversion of the evidence, for which there is absolutely no warrant in the record.

Point to Trial Testimony.

They point to the testimony in the trial to bear them out.

They contend that everything in the record brands the Solicitor's statements and insinuations on this subject as false and grossly unfair.

The evidence, according to their assertions, shows that Frank removed the time slip in the presence of the officers, commented on it, marked it "April 26, 1913," and later turned it over to Chief of Detectives Lanford.

This same slip was produced by the prosecution at the trial, they say, with the notation of the date rubbed out.

Frank was given the slip to explain to the jury in his formal statement.

He looked it over and remarked that he had made the notation, but that it had been rubbed out.

He did not know by whom.

The slip contained three "skips," indicating that the night watchman had missed punching the clock that number of times.

Solicitor Dorsey, at the conclusion of Frank's statement, it is cited, arose and explained that he had made the erasures, believing them to have been made by the detectives to identify the slip.

Dorsey Also to File Brief.

There Is nothing in any of the testimony, therefore, Frank's lawyers contend, to warrant the Solicitor's claim that there was a substitution.

The evidence points exactly to the opposite conclusion, it is held.

Other points in the Solicitor's argument are taken up and compared with the brief of evidence to show that there has been misstatement or misrepresentation.

The supplemental brief will be finished next week, and be filed with the Clerk of the Supreme Court.

Solicitor Dorsey also will be served with a copy.

The Solicitor asked the privilege of filling a supplemental brief, making assertions against the defense similar to those made against him.