The Leo Frank Case
The Controversial History of the Arrest and Trial of a Jewish Man Wrongly Convicted of Murder in the Early 20th Century
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Narrated by:
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Bill Hare
About this listen
"The pathological conditions in the city menaced the home, the state, the schools, the churches, and, in the words of a contemporary Southern sociologist, the 'wholesome industrial life'. The institutions of the city were obviously unfit to handle urban problems. Against this background, the murder of a young girl in 1913 triggered a violent reaction of mass aggression, hysteria, and prejudice." (Leonard Dinnerstein, historian)
The Jim Crow South has been notorious for miscarriages of justice for decades, and cases like the Scottsboro Boys continue to be commemorated for the manner in which institutionalized racism ensured the wrongful convictions of minorities. The attention given to these cases raised nearly every potential issue implicating criminal procedure among the states. While the Bill of Rights had ensured a number of rights for criminal defendants, the states had previously been allowed to interpret those rights, leading to instances where defendants weren't provided adequate legal representation. For example, the case of the Scottsboro Boys compelled the US Supreme Court to order new trials in Powell v. Arizona (1932), which went a long way to determining and codifying some of the rights of criminal defendants in state courts.
However, blacks weren't the only ones discriminated against in the South, as the Leo Frank case made clear in the 1910s. While 20th century anti-Semitism has been (and often continues to be) viewed mainly as a problem in European countries like France and Germany, anti-Semitic hysteria led to one of the most shocking episodes of mob justice in early 20th century America.
In 1913, Mary Phagan, a young Georgia factory girl and the daughter of tenant farmers, was raped and killed, and suspicion fell upon Leo Frank, the Jewish-American factory manager, who was subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted of her murder based on the thinnest of circumstantial evidence. The entire case against Frank rested on the testimony of the factory janitor, Jim Conley, despite the fact Conley had been arrested almost immediately after Frank when he was spotted washing what appeared to be blood off his clothes. Subsequent investigations determined that Conley had written notes found by Phagan's body, and Conley's testimony explained this extremely incriminating evidence away by claiming Frank had dictated the notes to him to write down before they moved the body to the location it was discovered. Modern historians now believe Conley committed the murder himself, but based on his testimony, Conley only received a sentence of one year for being an accomplice after the fact.
The conviction was controversial enough in its day that Georgia Governor John M. Slaton commuted Frank's death sentence, which stirred up such a frenzy that a mob driven by their prejudices took what they saw as justice into their own hands. The result was a stark reminder of the roles that race, class, and religion played in the South during the beginning of the 20th century.
The Leo Frank Case: The Controversial History of the Arrest and Trial of a Jewish Man Wrongly Convicted of Murder in the Early 20th Century examines the events that led up to the trial, how it was conducted, and the horrible aftermath.
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Story
At 5:40 a.m. on July 4, 1954, the mayor of Bay Village, a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, received a frantic phone call from his neighbor Dr. Sam Sheppard. The news was too terrible to comprehend: Marilyn, Sam's lovely wife, was dead, her face and torso beaten beyond recognition by an unknown assailant who had knocked Sam unconscious and escaped just before dawn. In the adjacent bedroom, Chip, the Sheppards' seven-year-old son, had slept through the entire ordeal. Almost immediately, the police began to suspect Sam Sheppard.
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Outstanding! But troubling
- By Tyree on 09-26-22
By: James Neff
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Little Shoes
- The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret
- By: Pamela Everett
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1937, a California crime stunned an already grim nation. Three little girls were lured away from a neighborhood park to unthinkable deaths. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story. But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once made about losing two of his sisters. Everett unearths a truly historic legal case that included the genesis of modern sex offender laws and the last man sentenced to hang in California.
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Masterful presentation of secrets and crime case!
- By deb on 05-31-18
By: Pamela Everett
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Let the Lord Sort Them
- The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty
- By: Maurice Chammah
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: The country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment.
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Very Slanted
- By appreciative reader on 02-07-21
By: Maurice Chammah
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The Assassination of Fred Hampton
- How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
- By: Jeffrey Haas
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Uncovering a cold-blooded execution at the hands of a conspiring police force, this engaging account relentlessly pursues the murderers of Black Panther Fred Hampton. Documenting the entire 14-year process of bringing the killers to justice, this chronicle also depicts the 18-month court trial in detail. Revealing Hampton himself in a new light, this examination presents him as a dynamic community leader whose dedication to his people and to the truth inspired the young lawyers of the People's Law Office.
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Terrible narrator for a great story!!!
- By D. Rolland on 11-06-20
By: Jeffrey Haas
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The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream
- The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer
- By: Dean Jobb
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women.
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Hard to Follow
- By Jessica on 08-26-21
By: Dean Jobb
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Fiend
- The Shocking True Story of America's Youngest Serial Killer
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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When 14-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree - the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime - were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today.
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Graphic descriptions of child torture
- By mobius_spider on 11-13-20
By: Harold Schechter
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A Death in Belmont
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Kevin Conway
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.
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Excellent
- By Susanna on 01-13-15
By: Sebastian Junger
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Race Against Time
- By: Jerry Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jerry Mitchell
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In Race Against Time, Mitchell takes listeners on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the Civil Rights Movement, decades after the fact. His work played a central role in bringing killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, and the Mississippi Burning case. Mitchell reveals how he unearthed secret documents and found long-lost suspects and witnesses, building up evidence strong enough to take on the Klan.
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Absolutely horrible reading
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-14-20
By: Jerry Mitchell
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H. H. Holmes
- The True History of the White City Devil
- By: Adam Selzer
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the first truly comprehensive book examining the life and career of the murderer who has become one of America's great supervillains. It reveals not only the true story but how the legend evolved, taking advantage of hundreds of primary sources that have never been examined before, including legal documents, letters, articles, and records that have been buried in archives for more than a century.
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The truth
- By Anna Fluellen on 09-08-17
By: Adam Selzer
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Panic
- Bloodlands collection
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Steven Weber
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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During the Depression, economic anxieties found an outlet in a series of child murders that triggered an irrational nationwide hysteria: pedophiliac psychopaths were overrunning the country. As America was brought to rage and fury by the press and the FBI, lynch mobs took to the streets, reason gave way to doomsday scenarios, and one father was even driven to murder his three daughters to “save them” from a degenerate crime wave. A terrifying cautionary essay, Panic explores the combustible mix of unfounded fears, moral crusades, and the dangers of collective thinking.
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Too sensational
- By Texaspaz on 10-14-20
By: Harold Schechter
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Devil in the Grove
- Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
- By: Gilbert King
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life. In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve....
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the fight for civil rights
- By Jean on 01-17-14
By: Gilbert King
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Furious Hours
- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
- By: Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
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Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
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A Cold-Blooded Business
- Adultery, Murder, and a Killer's Path from the Bible Belt to the Boardroom
- By: Marek Fuchs
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.
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GOOD TRUE CRIME STORY
- By The Louligan on 08-17-14
By: Marek Fuchs
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Illusion of Justice
- Inside Making a Murderer and America's Broken System
- By: Jerome F. Buting
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since The Thin Blue Line has there been a true-crime saga as engrossing as Making a Murderer. Captivating audiences across demographic lines, it made Steven Avery a household name and thrust defense attorney Jerome F. Buting - and his fight against America's dysfunctional criminal justice system - into the spotlight. In Illusion of Justice, Buting uses the Avery case as a springboard to examine the shaky integrity of our law enforcement and legal systems, which he has witnessed firsthand for nearly four decades.
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Tells it like it is . . .
- By Regan Williams on 11-26-17
By: Jerome F. Buting
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Emmett Till
- The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Devery S. Anderson
- Narrated by: Brandon Church
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Emmett Till offers the first truly comprehensive account of the 1955 murder and its aftermath. It tells the story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. His death and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and spurred on the civil rights movement.
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An important story narrated with power and warmth
- By R. Nance on 10-04-16
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A Brotherhood Betrayed
- The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc.
- By: Michael Cannell
- Narrated by: Gary Galone
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In the fall of 1941, a momentous trial was set to begin that threatened to end the careers and lives of New York’s most brutal mob kingpins. The lead witness, Abe Reles, had been a trusted executioner for Murder, Inc., the enforcement arm of a coast-to-coast mob network known as the Syndicate. But the man responsible for coolly silencing hundreds of informants was about to become the most talkative snitch of all. In exchange for police protection, Reles was prepared to rat out his murderous friends, from Albert Anastasia to Bugsy Siegel....
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History from the bottom up
- By Mark on 12-12-21
By: Michael Cannell
What listeners say about The Leo Frank Case
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CHERYL A VALENTINE-RICKS
- 09-08-23
Parade on Broadway
Not aware of this story until I saw Parade during a girls trip this summer….the play was powerful and deeply emotional….so enthralled by this story and this audio book version…thanks for making me aware through theatre and written word of the atrocities that have befallen so many!
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