Bob Hamm

Willie Francis

Electrocution is no longer the legal method of executing the death sentence in Louisiana. Lethal injection, the recently adopted approach to capital punishment, may be more humane. Hopefully it will be more efficient than older methods often proved to be.

May 3, 1993 will be the 47th anniversary of the first time Willie Francis went to the electric chair in St. Martinville. Coincidentally, May will also mark the 100th anniversary of the hanging of the Too Tall Man in that same serene and historical town. Of all the times that the justice system's death machines have failed in their depressing duties, these two examples of bungled executions may be the most bizarre.

This is the story of Willie Francis and his two trips to the chair, but some see a parallel between it and that of the awkwardly executed hanging that took place behind the St. Martin Parish Court House over a half-century earlier.

The Too Tall Man cheated the gallows only for a matter of minutes-- which to him must have seemed like eternity in hell. His name and some of the details of the hanging have been forgotten, and there are differing accounts of what happened on that day in May of 1893. The most colorful-- if not the most accurate--was the one often told by the late Mac Greig, St. Martinville's premier raconteur. According to Greig, the man was strung up for a double murder, but the length of his lanky frame exceeded the distance from the gallows to the ground. He dropped, as planned, from whatever they stood him on, but his legs were very long, and his feet reached solid earth. As astonished as the crowd that had come to see him die, he stood there on his tip-toes with the noose slack around his neck-- like a dancer in a macabre ballet.

Hands bound behind him, noose still in place, he watched as the executioner placed a board under his feet to support his weight, and, in an un-hurried, business-like fashion, proceeded to dig a hole beneath it. Greig claimed he whistled while he worked. When the executioner was content that the hole was deep enough, he laid aside his shovel and calmly kicked the board away. The accused killer danced frantically for a second on the un-resisting May air, the hangman's noose pulled tight, and the soul of the Too Tall Man shuffled off to Glory.

Are there parallels between that bizarre incident and the failed electrocution of a stuttering black teenager in St. Martinville just over a half-century later? When Willie Francis walked away from the electric chair after the executioner threw the switch twice, he too dangled for a while before his plunge into eternity. He was held up, also--albeit by legal documents rather than a rough piece of lumber. And, like the Too Tall Man, he watched as the ground was figuratively, but just as surely, dug out from under him in courts of law. It took longer, because the wheels of justice move much slower than did the executioner's shovel, but the result was the same.

A half-century had made a lot of difference. In 1893, no one considered whether the leisurely dispatch of the Too Tall Man constituted cruel or unusual punishment. No argument was made that he had been saved by an Act of God, and should be set free. No one came forth to claim double jeopardy or denial of due process. The cry of racism was not raised. Jurists from Louisiana to the U.S. Supreme Court did not ponder his fate.

All this and more did occur after Willie Francis walked away from the electric chair. Unlike the Too Tall Man, Francis was given a long time on his board...time to hope, but also time for dark and terrible memories no one else could share--of the hard chair, the leather straps, the electrodes, the black hood falling over his face and the snap of the switch that followed the executioner's "good-bye, Willie."

He had a year to wonder if it would all happen to him again.

The Willie Francis drama, which riveted the attention of the world on Louisiana, began in St. Martinville on a November day in 1944. Andrew Thomas, owner of a local pharmacy, had dinner that evening with Dr. and Mrs. Earl Eastin at their home on Bridge Street. It was apparently a sumptuous meal. The 54-year-old bachelor commented on leaving that "If I die tonight, I'll die well fed."

As he walked to his car, he probably looked toward the home of his brother, just across the street. Claude Thomas was chief of police in St. Martinville. Another brother, R. L., was secretary-treasurer of the parish police jury. The Thomas family was well respected in the community.

As Andrew turned onto the picturesque main street of St. Martinville, he passed near the drug store he had opened on his return a few years before from New Orleans, where he had worked for the K & B chain. As in most small towns of the forties, the drug store was a favorite gathering place. People liked Thomas, and liked to stop by for coffee and conversation. There was a soda fountain, of course. Lafayette businessman Ed Bulliard, a St. Martinville high school student in the Forties, recalls that "we all hung out there...the teenagers liked Mr. Thomas."

Thomas drove from the quiet business district, where "Henry Aldrich's Little Secret" was playing at the Bienvenu Theater, to the home he had built across from Evangeline Park. He put his car away and began walking from the garage to the house. A figure stepped from the shadows, and the repeated echo of gunfire through the quiet Spring night made prophecy of Thomas' earlier jest about dying that night.

The next morning, when he failed to show up at the drug store, R. L. Thomas drove to his brother's home and found Andrew's body lying on the ground between the house and the garage. He had been shot five times. The St. Martinville Weekly Messenger reported that police found signs of "a terrific struggle." (It is peculiar that this is the only mention ever made of a struggle. In 1946, when events related to the murder became national news, other papers accepted the killer's statement that he stepped from behind the garage and fired without warning, with no verbal or physical contact with his victim.)

Whatever the case, it was a particularly brutal murder. One bullet crashed through Thomas' right eye, two more entered his body under the right arm pit, and a fifth hit him in the center of the back, apparently as he spun around to try to escape. His death netted the murderer a pocket watch and a wallet containing four dollars.

In that week's St. Martinville Weekly Messenger, Editor Marcel "Blackie" Bienvenu called it "one of the most tragic crimes this community has ever had."

"Mr. Thomas was one of the best-loved people in St. Martinville," Bienvenu wrote. "Besides enjoying a host of friends and relatives, he was loved by all the children and youth of the community." (It is significant that Bienvenu, member of a family of respected writers and editors, reported the crime in a completely responsible manner, without the slightest touch of sensationalism. He had all the ingredients for a story that could no doubt have incited the community to drastic action when the killer of the well-loved pharmacist was captured, but he chose not to play upon the emotions of his readers.)

Funeral services for Andrew Thomas were held at St. Martin de Tours, Mother Church of the Acadians, and he was buried in the family plot in the Catholic Cemetery.

Through the months that followed, while lawmen under the direction of Sheriff Leonard Resweber searched for clues, the people of St. Martinville lived in fear. State Representative Sydnie Mae Durand was a child then, but she remembers the chilling effect the brutal crime had on the peaceful little community. "Adults talked about it in whispers," she says. "In front of the children, they talked about it in French. There was a killer at large, and everyone was terrified."

Few people ventured out at night during the period between the murder and the capture of the killer, but a story is told of one couple who had to be away for part of an evening, and called a trusted black woman to stay with their children. A relative of the couple remembers that the black woman was also caught up in the terror that gripped the town, and said she would feel safe only if she could bring her son with her. That night, the children were looked after by the woman and her stuttering teen- aged son, Willie Francis.

Francis was 15 at the time, and the youngest of Fred and Louise Francis' 14 children. His mother described him as a quiet, gentle boy who was "a blessing around the house," and preferred being at home to playing football or baseball. "He could cook and make the beds as good as any woman," she told a reporter. He attended Notre Dame Church, and was "a good Catholic," his mother said.

When the Willie Francis story was picked up by the national media, he was portrayed by reporters much the way his mother described him. However, former state trooper Otis Hebert of St. Martinville remembers him differently...as cocky and insolent. According to Hebert, one employer fired him because of his insolence, and--during a heated confrontation-- threw him bodily out of his place of business.

"When he was leaving," Hebert says, "Willie turned around and said 'I'm going to get you'."

The employer, according to Hebert, was Andrew Thomas.

The search for clues in the case bore some fruit when officers found a pistol--stolen from a deputy's car--in a wooded area near Thomas' home. Sometime during the investigation, Francis disappeared from St. Martinville, although there is no indication that he was a suspect in the crime. He surfaced again in Port Arthur, Texas. Police there, after apprehending a suspect in a narcotics case, were checking the area for accomplices. Francis was found hiding behind a tree, and taken in for investigation of any possible link with the drug case. When he was searched, Andrew Thomas' wallet was found in his pocket.

Port Arthur police reports contradict the shy, gentle image the national media gave to Willie Francis. They show that he immediately confessed to the brutal beating and robbery of an elderly Port Arthur man, then admitted he had murdered Andrew Thomas. When he was returned to St. Martinville, he spat at the crowd that had gathered around the jail to see the killer.

Francis repeated his confession to Sheriff Resweber, and directed officers to the place where he said he had thrown the gun after shooting Thomas. It was the place where deputies had found the stolen gun earlier.

Next, Francis led officers to a jewelry store where he said he had sold Andrew Thomas' pocket watch. The jeweler produced a watch case inscribed with the initials "A. T."

Finally, Francis pointed out a spot where he said he had thrown the holster that the murder weapon was in when he stole it from the sheriff's vehicle. Deputies digging with hoes and shovels found the leather holster.

Taking no chances on mob rule, Sheriff Resweber had Francis transferred to the Iberia Parish Jail of Sheriff Gilbert Ozenne to await trial. The court proceedings were short and uneventful. District Attorney L. O. Pecot of Franklin prosecuted, assisted by Lawrence Simon of New Iberia. Francis, defended by court-appointed attorneys James R. Parkerson of Franklin and Otto J. Mestayer of New Iberia, did not testify. The Weekly Iberian newspaper reported that he "appeared disinterested."

A guilty verdict was returned on Thursday, September 13, 1945, and the next day, District Judge James D. Simon sentenced Francis to die in the electric chair.

Governor Jimmy Davis signed a mandatory death warrant, ordering Francis to be executed on May 3, 1946. In those days, executions took place in the parish where the crime was committed, using a portable, hardwood electric chair which was shuttled around the state from its home base at Angola State Prison. On the appointed day, Captain E. Foster of the prison staff arrived in St. Martinville with the chair and large panel of switches and wires necessary for its operation. An Angola inmate, Vincent Vicenzia, accompanied him as electrician. The chair was set up in a room of the court house, and Vicenzia connected the wires, then ran them outside and across the lawn to the penitentiary truck which contained its own generator. He set the generator at 2500 volts and ran the necessary tests.

Although there was no report of it at the time, responsible people would later testify that the men from Angola were "so drunk that it was impossible for them to have known what they were doing."

While Willie was being prepared for electrocution, Fred Francis came to the court house, prepared to claim his son's body. Spectators said he appeared to be in a daze as he stumbled from an old hearse.

Just before noon, Father Maurice Rousseve, pastor of Notre Dame, arrived. He would serve as chaplain.

At noon, Sheriff Resweber and some of his deputies came for Francis. With Father Rousseve, they escorted him to the little ante-room where the chair was set up.

Willie Francis sat down in the chair.

"They walked me into the room and I saw the chair and sat down on it. I knew it was a bad chair. All I could think was 'Willie, you're going out of this world'. Just 'Willie you're going out of this world in this bad chair'. They began to strap me in the chair and everything looked 'dazey' in the room. It was like the folks watching were in a big swing and they would swing way back, then right up close to me where I could hear their breathing.

"You feel like you got a mouth full of cold peanut butter, and you see little pink and blue and green speckles, the kind that shine in a rooster's tail.

"I didn't think about my whole life like at the picture show. Just 'Willie, you're going out of this world in this bad chair'. Sometimes I thought it so hard it hurt my head. And they put the black bag over my head and I was all locked up inside the bag with the loud thinking."

After putting the hood over Francis' head, Sheriff Resweber stepped back and nodded to the executioner. Foster checked his instrument panel, said "Good bye, Willie," and threw the switch.

"He could have been putting me on a bus for New Orleans the way he said it, and I tried to say good-bye but my tongue got stuck in the peanut butter and I felt a burning in my head and my left leg and I jumped against the straps."

It was obvious to the executioner that the jolt had not been lethal. He threw the switch again. Francis' body jerked. His lips puffed out. The chair shifted under the force of his movements. Foster yelled for more juice, and Vicenzia shouted back from the truck that he was "giving it all there is."

"When the straps kept cutting me I hoped I was alive and I asked the electric man to let me breathe."

There was total silence in the room, other than Willie's muffled pleas from behind the hood. Witnesses were stunned. Sheriff Resweber signaled to the executioner to give it up. The officials knew that there was a malfunction. The portable chair was not working.

The hood, straps and electrodes were removed and Willie Francis walked from the electric chair into the national spotlight.

-----VINCE, THIS WOULD BE A GOOD PLACE TO BREAK IF YOU WANT TO MAKE IT A TWO-PARTER

Had the equipment worked, and Willie Francis died the first time he sat in the electric chair, little notice would have been taken of the entire affair, other than in St. Martinville. The murder of Andrew Thomas had drawn scant publicity to that point, going un-reported in newspapers as close as New Iberia, where the first story ran a month after Thomas' death, when Resweber and the victim's family offered a $500 reward for information.

But when Willie Francis walked away from the electric chair, he became a national celebrity, and the center of a legal battle which a U.S. Supreme Court Justice termed "unprecedented." The brutal murder of the well-loved St. Martinville pharmacist became no more than incidental to the raging controversy over whether or not Francis should be forced to return to the electric chair for fulfillment of his sentence. It was no longer "the Andrew Thomas murder case." It was now "the Willie Francis case."

Reporters from the national wire services and the major newspapers descended on St. Martinville. When Governor Davis set another execution date for May 11, local and state officials--from Davis to St. Martinville Mayor Leo Bulliard--were inundated with mail from all over the country, urging that Francis not go through the experience again. Hundreds who considered it a racial matter, and considered Mississippi an icon for racism, mistakenly addressed their letters to the governor of that state. He finally issued a statement saying "Leave us alone. We're not involved. We've got enough problems of our own." Sympathetic letters also poured in to Francis at the Iberia Parish jail. He read them all, and answered some, despite the fact than most northern newspapers chose to portray him as "the stuttering, illiterate teenager."

In the months that followed, Francis' cause would be championed by people like network commentator Walter Winchell, Father Flanagan of Boys' Town, Hollywood's celebrity lawyer Jerry Geisler, James Marlow of Time Magazine, Newsweek's Walter White, and scores of major publications, including the prestigious New York Law Journal.

Apparently encouraged by this outpouring of sympathy, and by the N.A.A.C.P.'s decision to oppose another execution, Fred Francis set out to find a lawyer for his son. Bertrand DeBlanc, a 35-year-old St. Martinville lawyer who had recently returned from decorated military service in World War II, said the senior Francis came to his office with tears in his eyes, asking for help. DeBlanc, who would later serve as Fifteenth Judicial District Attorney for almost a quarter of a century, took the case, even though there was no money to pay for his services.

DeBlanc, did not seek freedom for Francis, but asked for commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment. Still, many residents of St. Martinville expressed outrage that DeBlanc would try to keep the state from imposing the full penalty. DeBlanc responded in a letter to the Weekly Messenger.

"I have no apologies to make for taking this case. That's my profession--to defend people and see that they get all that the law allows them. I do not intend to be false to the oath I took as an attorney. I figure every man is entitled to his day in court, whether he is rich or poor, black or white.

"I can say without fear of contradiction that I was one of Andrew's best friends. I spent a lot of time going to the drug store just to talk to him. My kids spent most of their time around the store.

"I have not urged and do not urge that Willie Francis be set free.

"My few critics will soon be dead and buried, but the principles involved in this case of freedom from cruel and unusual punishment and that of due process and double jeopardy will live as long as the American flag waves across this continent."

Those principles formed the basis of DeBlanc's arguments in Francis' behalf, which began before the courts of Louisiana. He contended that Francis had already suffered horribly, and that putting him in the electric chair a second time would constitute double jeopardy and cruel and unusual punishment. The national press and much of America agreed with him, but the courts did not. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the trial and sentencing had been proper, and that it could not reverse a lower court simply because of a technical problem with the electric chair.

DeBlanc turned next to the pardon board, composed of Simon, the sentencing judge; Lieutenant Governor Emile Verret and Attorney General Fred LeBlanc. DeBlanc's basic argument, that no man should face impending death twice. was eloquently presented.

He cited several strong precedents for commutation of sentence after a failed execution, including one in which the sentence was commuted simply because a sheriff got busy and forgot to hang a man at the appointed time. Along with such cases, he tossed in the reprieve of Shadrach, Meschac and Abednego from the fiery furnace, and Daniel from the lion's den.

"Suppose the chair doesn't work a second time?" he asked the board. "Suppose it doesn't work a third time? That could happen. It's happened once and it could happen again. What is this going to be? An experiment in torture? An experiment in modern forms of cruelty? Is the State of Louisiana trying to outdo the Caesars, the Hitlers, the Tojos, the Nazis, the Gestapo? How long does the State of Louisiana take to kill a man? If we want to do it right, let's boil him in oil. Let's burn him at the stake, or put him on the rack. Then we could be sure that by sundown he would be dead. Gentlemen, the whole system of capital punishment is in jeopardy because of the inhuman method by which it is being inflicted in this case."

The board was un-moved by DeBlanc's eloquence. It refused to commute the sentence. Next stop: the United States Supreme Court. J. Skelly Wright, a native of Louisiana who would later become a federal judge, was practicing law in Washington and filed briefs for DeBlanc with the high court. N.A.A.C.P. attorney A. P. Tureaud also filed in behalf of Francis.

Meanwhile, Willie Francis was serving as a model prisoner in the Iberia Parish jail. Those who visited him saw on his cot a bible and a crucifix. (Some also saw a copy of True Story magazine under the cot.) He apparently welcomed the attention of the media, and was always amenable to interviews. In one, he referred to Andrew Thomas as "a pretty good boss...a swell guy."

"I just don't know why I killed him," he said.

He told one wire service reporter, "I don't ask God to save my life any more. I just ask for forgiveness for my sins. I think of God as like Jesus Christ--a young handsome man with a beard. I know he will forgive me for any sins I have committed."

At one point, he agreed to will his eyes to a blind man in Texas, saying "when I was a small child a blind neighbor used to play with me." A black-oriented magazine later published a letter from Francis to the wife of the blind Texan, in which he recanted, saying his mother told him not to leave the man his eyes.

A totally disabled veteran from California offered to take his place in the electric chair. Francis' startling response was "if anybody sits in the chair, it's going to be me."

He was quoted in the Daily Advertiser as saying he would like to be given a life sentence instead of death, and would enjoy being a cook at the state prison. "I used to cook for my daddy, and he says I got a knack with mustard greens and side meat."

Gene Carter and Joseph Lester, both of Lafayette, wrote a song about the failed execution called "The Lawd Fooled Around with that Chair":

"The jailer man said Good-bye, Willie, Good-bye.

But the Lawd fooled around with that chair.

I don't rightly know why I didn't go.

Guess the Lawd fooled around with that chair."

When his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Francis was impressed. "Who would think that one Negro boy could get all them big men to talk about him?" he asked a reporter.

The Supreme Court decision was 5-4 against Willie Francis. But throughout the court, there was obvious distaste for putting him through the ordeal a second time. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in the majority opinion that the court "must abstain from interfering with state action, no matter how strong one's revulsion against a state's insistence on its pound of flesh."

It appeared to be over, but DeBlanc made one more try. He asked the Supreme Court to remand the case back to state court because of new evidence of culpability on the part of the state. A former New Iberia City Attorney, Louie M. Cyr, had submitted an affidavit containing eyewitness testimony from George Etier that a drunken execution team turned the planned electrocution into "a disgraceful and inhuman exhibition." Another affidavit from Ignace Doucet supported the contention, and DeBlanc recalled that he, too, had watched from his office window as the Angola team imbibed while testing the equipment. (DeBlanc had already included in Supreme Court filings a claim that the executioner had vowed, when the chair failed, that he would "get" Willie Francis next time "even if I have to kill him with a rock.")

The Supreme Court declined to act, but clearly and pointedly endorsed the advisability of pursuing the matter in federal district court. It was a victory for DeBlanc. He rushed to New Iberia. Shortly after a visit with Francis, however, he wired his colleague in Washington, advising him not to take the case any further.

Willie Francis had decided he did not want to continue the legal battle. He was ready to go back to the bad chair.

"I want the chair to work this time. I want to die, because as soon as I do, I'm going to the Lord."

A new execution order was issued for May 9, 1947, a year and 6 days after the first attempt to electrocute Francis. Francis said he knew this time that when the switch was pulled, he would be on his way to heaven.

"Heaven is a place where you have a white suit. I don't mean a seersucker suit but a white suit and tie...a linen suit and a fine, spreading tie. For going to heaven, I want the white suit to show off my shoulders."

He was then 18 years old.

At noon on May 9, three Catholic priests accompanied him as he walked to the room where the same chair was set up again. He snapped a one- fingered salute toward Elliot Chaze of Associated Press, who had been a frequent visitor to his jail cell, and calmly sat down.

While the executioner adjusted the leg straps, Francis closed his eyes. Then he opened them and grinned at the spectators.

"Do you have anything to say, Willie?"

"Nothing at all."

The executioner took a cigar from his mouth and applied the power. There was a roar from the prison truck outside as the big, gasoline-powered generator fired 2700 volts down the line for 30 seconds, and then again for 15. Chaze, the AP reporter, said there was not a tremor as the electricity hit Francis. His chest didn't arch. His fingers remained motionless on the rough wooden arms of the bad chair.

Moments later, he was pronounced dead by Doctors Bernard DeMahy and R. H. Robinson of St. Martinville, and S. D. Yongue of Breaux Bridge.

Former State Senator Sam Broussard was a witness to the execution, and his recollection of a comment by Francis raises an interesting question. Did an eagerness to meet his maker account for the youth's relaxed attitude in the chair, or was he expecting to get up and walk away again? According to Broussard, he sat in the chair with the boast that "electricity can't kill me."

On the other hand, Francis' choice of a last meal was poignant testimony to the sincerity of his religious convictions. His favorite food was fried chicken, and he had told reporters he would eat a whole one as his final repast. When the time came, however, he surprised the newsmen by asking the jailer's wife to cook fish instead. The northern reporters who didn't understand his decision were probably Protestants.

Willie Francis was executed on a Friday.

During one of his last conversations on earth, a reporter asked him, "are you scared?" He answered, "no."

"Are you guilty?" He answered "yes."

And then he spoke what perhaps should be his epitaph. "The Lord is the real judge," he said. "The Lord is the real judge."

The reporter said he didn't stutter at all when he said it.