Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [129]
Jimmy Lucas and Rufus Franklin being transferred to court via the prison launch on November 18, 1938.
Lucas (left) and Franklin (right) during their highly publicized court appearances. Both inmates were convicted of first-degree murder for their role in Officer Cline’s death.
Rufus Franklin in court, awaiting the jury’s verdict.
Coroner's Technician Paul Green testifying in the Franklin and Lucas trial. Mr. Green is seen pointing to indentations in the skull, which the prosecution claimed were caused by hammer blows inflicted when Cline resisted the escapees.
Death mask of slain guard R. C. Cline; the hammers used in his murder; and other tools found in the Model Shop that were used in the escape attempt.
Harold P. Stites is sworn in to testify at a coroner’s inquest on November 4, 1938. On the table is Limerick’s death mask, showing the bullet wound from Stites’s fatal gunshot. Stites himself would later die in the brutally violent “Battle of Alcatraz” of 1946.
Franklin, who had been found with the bloodied hammer used in Cline’s killing, would be sentenced to serve nearly fourteen years in a closed-front solitary confinement cell. He would spend the longest term in solitary of any inmate in the history of Alcatraz. Nevertheless, Franklin was eventually extended a few special privileges. After a long period, he was allowed to keep the door front open and to enjoy a non-restricted diet. His long-term isolation status made him an underground hero among his fellow inmates. Even while being held in the most controlled cell row, he was able to communicate with others in the general population via orderlies, and thus to obtain contraband.
On February 27, 1945, Franklin was allowed time in the recreation yard along with famed inmate Henri Young. In an interrogation of Young while he was under the influence of the drug Sodium Amatol, the prisoner asserted that Whitey Franklin was the “coolest” inmate at Alcatraz. However, Franklin apparently didn’t reciprocate Young’s feelings. During their brief meeting in the yard, the two quickly engaged in conflict, and Franklin produced a kitchen knife and inflicted a minor stab wound to Young’s right shoulder. In a telegram written to Bureau of Prisons Director James Bennett, Warden Johnston suggested that an inmate assigned to the kitchen detail had planted the knife in the yard.
Franklin was released back into the general population in 1952. Because he refused to participate in a culinary strike that lasted from March 18th until April 4th, Franklin was forced back into the Treatment Unit for protection from the hostility of other inmates. He was allowed to continue work, and was permanently returned to the general population on February 12, 1954. Records show that Franklin readjusted easily to the normal prison routine. He increased his reading habits and was noted to take special interest in spiritual and philosophical subjects. Franklin gradually became more trusted by the custodial staff, and was later awarded a privileged position in the prison’s hospital. He was trained as an X-Ray technician and later qualified as a surgical assistant, and was even allowed to prepare and handle the surgical instruments during operations.
After spending twenty years at Alcatraz, Franklin was allowed to transfer back to Leavenworth Penitentiary for a brief ten-month stay, and then to Atlanta Federal Prison to be closer to his family. In a letter written in August of 1958, Franklin boasted about the train ride through New Mexico and Arizona in a Pullman car, and the emotion of seeing life outside of prison for the first time since the murder trial of Royal Cline. He wrote frequently to Warden Madigan and other friends at Alcatraz, keeping them up-to-date on his progress. Madigan seemed to reflect pleasantly on Franklin’s progress, and in a letter dated