On August 1, 1942, Jose Diaz died near Sleepy Lagoon in Los Angeles County, California. The autopsy indicated that he was inebriated; he also had multiple injuries including damage to his skull and brain. It was unclear whether these injuries were the result of a fall onto an uneven surface or if they were inflicted by another person. Either way, twenty two people were charged with his killing; most of them were convicted.
The story began over what seems to be some kind of turf warfare where some young men beat up other young men. It was all a matter of senseless violence proving that this is a universal phenomenon from almost time immemorial. There are plenty of details available from different sources. The appeal of the verdicts – the place I am relying on here – is People v. Zammora, 68 Ca. App. 2d 166 (1944). The details of what happened – or what may have happened – are not the subject of this post. Instead, here we will look at the atmosphere, the trial, the judge, the defense attorneys, and the defendants.
Starting with the atmosphere. It was 1942 in California. The previous December, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor bringing the United States fully into WWII. By February, 1942, the president had initiated “Relocation Centers” for Japanese Americans. These were bleak, desolate internment camps where legal residents and citizens were sent for fear that they were somehow foreign agents. These law abiding folks were given 48 hours to vacate their homes, take what they could carry, and travel to military encampments becoming prisoners for years. All because of their ethnicity and the fact that they lived in California.
In this setting or rising ethnic and racial tension, when so many young Latino men were charged with a capital crime (that may not have even been a crime in the first place), a community of activists formed the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. This group raised money and awareness about the case.
On to the defendants. They were all young Mexican American men. Many of them wore the Southern California style of the day commonly referred to as a Zoot Suit. Due to anti-Mexican prejudice and discrimination, these baggy pants and jackets with padded shoulders and wide lapels were linked in the press and in the minds of primarily white middle class members of the community as the clothing of hooligans and gangsters even though, most often, they were just fashion items.
About that judge: Charles Fricke was considered a no-nonsense, hanging judge who ran his courtroom with a proverbial iron fist. He admonished counsel and seemed, at least in the Zammora trial, to have a particular problem with the defendants and their lawyers, all of whom were esteemed members of the bar. He berated the lawyers before the jury (just for doing their job by objecting to objectional aspects fo the government’s case or the judge's rulings). Fricke was a complicated man who believed that juvenile justice was coddling criminals but also had a penchant for, and was delighted by, magic tricks. Regardless of any other trial he conducted, the Appeals Court found his actions in this case to be over the line. He made incorrect evidentiary rulings, was rude to counsel, kept the defendants from their lawyers, and refused to allow for a change of clothing for any of them, forcing them to wear the same clothes in which they were arrested – their Zoot Suits – every single day of the trial.
On to the lawyers – the most famous one from the trial was a guy named George Shibley. He had a storied career as a civil rights lawyer. This was punctuated by his own trial for contempt in military court where he acted as his own counsel proving the adage that the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. It did not go well. He was also one of the lawyers representing Sirhan Sirhan on appeal. Anyway – he did a pretty good job at trial and on appeal in the “Zoot Suit” case.
Meanwhile, as the 1940’s were their own hotbed of discrimination and burgeoning civil rights movements. Both before and during trial, the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, comprised of a mosaic of people from various backgrounds and ethnicities, remained active. While some of the many defendants were acquitted after trial, most were convicted – some of first degree murder, in January,1943. The prejudice against not just these defendants, but against Chicanos and Latinos persisted, symbolized by mockery and hatred of the Zoot Suit.
Given the strategic location of California along the Pacific Coast, the entire state was deemed a military area. Therefore, members of the military were everywhere. Ironically, many of these servicemen were Mexican Americans. Others, in a terrifying display of an authoritarian bent, began harassing young Latino men, particularly those in the baggy pants with bulky jackets. They branded these teenagers, most too young to serve, as draft dodgers. Resentment festered until, in June, 1943, the Zoot Suit Riots made headlines.
Mostly military personnel, assisted by others, sought out anyone wearing what they might call a Zoot Suit and beat them mercilessly with clubs and fists and shod feet. Despite pleas for assistance form the Latino community, no real help arrived. In fact, the people arrested were not the criminals, but the brave Latinos who fought back.
After the brutal violence subsided, Los Angeles actually banned the wearing of Zoot Suits – condemning the victims rather than the perpetrators. The state’s governor then established a committee to investigate what occurred and determined that (surprise!) racial bias could not be ignored. Maybe this experience shaped his later thinking. Hard to say. But, that Governor was a man named Earl Warren who would go on the become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
So – what happened to Jose Diaz? Nobody really knows. Somehow he ended up dead and mostly forgotten in the history of these events. He may or may not have been part of the earlier fight, may or may not have been in any fight; indeed, he may have tripped and cracked his own head open.
However, his death caused a chain reaction of the arrest of 22 young Mexican American men. That triggered concern in the community already reeling from their neighbors being transported to concentration camps for Japanese American citizens. This group raised awareness of the trial, keeping it in the news. The prejudice in the community was profound and likely influenced the judge. Indeed, he denied the defendants the opportunity to consult with their lawyers claiming that, with 22 defendants and 6 lawyers, the courtroom was too small to accommodate. Therefore, the sacrifice was not to have separate trials or find a larger venue or create a way for counsel to sit at separate tables from each other but alongside their own clients. Instead, the sacrifice was to the constitutional rights of the defendants. The conviction of most of these young men at trial encouraged both support through the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee and enormous prejudice resulting in devastating violence upon the Latino community by people in authority.
Most of these simmering tensions had died down some by the time the Appeals Court heard the case. To its credit, the court addressed each claim raised – rejected some, but acknowledged many, including the bias of the trial judge and the constitutional right for defendants to consult with their lawyers at trial. The convictions were reversed. None of the defendants was ever retried. And it all started at a party near a now paved-over swimming hole in a long-forgotten Los Angeles County wilderness north of a neighborhood called Watts which has its own colorful past and is a story for another day.
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