What began as a neighborhood party during the summer of 1942 led to
the largest mass murder trial in California's history. After young
Jose Diaz was found murdered near Los Angeles' Sleepy Lagoon
reservoir, 600 Mexican Americans were rounded up by the police, 24
were indicted, and 17 were convicted. But thanks to the efforts of
crusading lawyers, Hollywood celebrities, and Mexican Americans
throughout the nation, all 17 convictions were thrown out in an
appellate decision that cited lack of evidence, coerced testimony,
deprivation of the right to counsel, and judicial misconduct.
Mark Weitz chronicles the Sleepy Lagoon case (People v. Zammora)
from the streets of the L.A.'s Mexican-American neighborhoods to
the criminal courts, through the appeals process, and to the
ultimate release of the convicted. In the process, Weitz opens a
window on the uneasy world of Hispanic-Anglo relations, which,
exacerbated by an influx of Mexican immigrants, had simmered
beneath the surface in California for a century and reached the
boiling point by 1942. By demonstrating how an environment of
hostility and fear had fostered a breakdown in the legal
protections that should have been afforded to the Sleepy Lagoon
defendants, Weitz also illuminates a vital episode in the evolution
of defendants' rights-including the right to counsel and a fair and
impartial trial.
As the case unfolded, the prosecution and local media drew
ominous comparisons between the supposed dangers posed by the
Mexican-American defendants and the threat allegedly posed by
thousands of Japanese Americans, whose sympathies had been called
into question after Pearl Harbor. Weitz shows how Zammora
demonstrates what it is like to literally be tried in the court of
public opinion where the "opinion" has been shaped before the trial
even begins.
Now, as Americans once again feel threatened by
outsiders--whether Islamic jihadists or illegal immigrants--Zammora
provides a mirror showing us how we acted then compared to how we
respond now. While much of what occurred in 1942 L.A. was unique to
its time and place, Weitz's compelling narrative shows that many of
the social, political, and culture issues that dominated America
then are still with us today.
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