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The New International, November 1941

 

The Minneapolis Verdict

 

From The New International, Vol. VII No. 10, November 1941, p. 258.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

A jury verdict in the Minneapolis trial (see the article in this issue of The New International) arrived immediately before we went to press. After two days of deliberation, the jury found 18 members of the Socialist Workers Party and the CIO guilty of the charge of inciting insubordination in the Army. Five other defendants were acquitted, making a total of ten defendants acquitted of the original 28. (Grant Dunne, the 29th defendant, committed suicide on the eve of the trial).

The jury dismissed the indictments charging sedition (the Sedition Act of 1861, adopted during the Civil War days), and the seditious sections of the Smith Act adopted in 1940. It did turn in a verdict of guilty on the charge which the government itself admitted it had no real evidence to sustain a conviction.

At this writing, sentence by the judge on the jury verdict has not been announced. But the defense has already declared its intention of appealing the verdict.

 
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