The Sleepy Lagoon murder case
Subtitle: race discrimination and Mexican-American rights
By: Mark A. Weitz
Series: Landmark law cases & American society
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Lawrence, Kan
Language: eng
Number of pages: 203
ISBN-13: 9780700617463; 9780700617470
Description: After Jose Diaz was found murdered near Los Angeles' Sleepy Lagoon reservoir, six hundred Mexican Americans were rounded up by the police, twenty-four were indicted, and seventeen were convicted. Efforts of lawyers, Hollywood celebrities, and Mexican Americans throughout the nation resulted in all seventeen convictions being thrown out in an appellate decision that cited lack of evidence, coerced testimony, deprivation of the right to counsel, and judicial misconduct. Many of the social, political, and culture issues that dominated America in 1942 are still with us today.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The world of Zammora; title: Support or illumination; title: "Laws are silent"; title: "How am I supposed to know it is a gang?"; title: "Baby mobsters"; title: "Running into a blank wall"; title: Alice's boys; title: The riots and beyond; title: "With the haste of the mob"; title: Whither Zammora.