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The Sleepy Lagoon Defendants

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The Resume

    Twelve Mexican-American youths arrested in Los Angeles and charged with the murder of Jose Gallardo Diaz (August 2, 1942)
    Enrique 'Henry' Reyes Leyvas (1923-71), Jack Melendez (1921-), Angel Padilla (1924-), John Matuz (1922- ), Ysmael 'Smiles' Parra (1922-2001), Jose 'Chepe' Ruiz (1925-96), Gustavo 'Gus' Zamora (1922-83), Manuel 'Manny' Reyes Salazar (1925-95), Robert 'Bobby' Telles (1924-67) Manuel 'Manny' Delgado (1924-1999), Victor Segobia (1927-), and Henry 'Hank' Joseph Ynostroza (1924-2006)
    Convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to serve time in San Quentin Prison (January 12, 1943)
    Convictions were reversed by the state Court of Appeals (October 4, 1944)
    Referred to as 'The Sleepy Lagooners' and 'The Sleepy Lagoon Boys'
    Inspired the play and movie 'Zoot Suit'

Why they might be annoying:

    Some of them did have prior criminal records for lower-level offenses like theft and assault (most notably Smiles Parra).
    The exact number of defendants is sometimes messed up even by Wikipedia and PBS.
    There were actually 22 defendants, but eight were were either charged with lesser offenses and incarcerated in the Los Angeles County Jail or were found not guilty in a separate trial.
    Sources tend to ignore the thirteenth main defendant found guilty and jailed (Bobby Levine) because he was white.
    Part of their initial problem was that they had five lawyers between them.
    The public took issue that they wore big coats, bigger pants (known as 'zoot suits') and large hairstyles during the wartime-era.
    Their case exacerbated ethnic and racial tensions which culminated in Los Angeles' Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.
    Two of the defendants - Angel Padilla and Manny Delgado - returned to prison on other charges in the years following the reversal.

Why they might not be annoying:

    Their due process rights and right to an impartial jury were both violated.
    Their attorneys requested the court to allow them to get haircuts and a change of clothes for their trial but were denied because the judge thought they might look 'less threatening' to the jurors.
    They had a judge who was insanely biased toward the prosecution (he allowed an 'expert witness' to testify Mexicans were biologically predisposed to violence because their Aztec ancestors did human sacrifice rituals).
    Their swift arrest and conviction was in response to a Hearst-led media campaign calling for action against high crime and zoot suit-wearing 'pachucos' (the initial round-up was 600 mostly black and Mexican kids - usually with no evidence).
    They received support from stars like Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.
    Eleanor Roosevelt objected to the way they and other 'Zoot Suiters' were treated.
    Henry Leyvas and three of the other defendants went on to start local small businesses after their acquittal.
    Their case galvanized the Mexican-American community and birthed the Chicano Rights movement.
    An attendee of the party Jose Diaz was at the night of his death made a deathbed confession to her kids (in 1991) that her boyfriend had killed Diaz after being ejected from the party and that she had protected him until his suicide during a robbery in 1972 - he was not among the 13-22 defendants charged or convicted.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


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