Earl King, Ernest Ramsay, and Frank Conner were three merchant seamen convicted of murdering a ship's officer, George Alberts, aboard a freighter anchored in Alameda, California, on March 22, 1936. Their trial, appeals, and terms in San Quentin Prison made up a widely reported case that caught the attention of trade unionists, progressives, and radicals. The actions were prosecuted by Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren.
King was the secretary of the Marine Firemen's Union, Ramsay was a union organizer, and Conner was the engine-room union delegate aboard the steamship Point Lobos , which was on a trip for Swayne & Hoyt's Pacific to Gulf Coast shipping lane and had crossed the Panama Canal on 7 March, heading for Seattle, Washington. [1] Union activists accused the prosecution of engaging in an anti-union plot, alleging prejudice by the judge and other irregularities. [2] [3]
The three were not aboard the ship when the crime was committed. The actual assault was laid to a seaman named Sakovitz, whose first name was never revealed and who was never apprehended. Another sailor, George Wallace, admitted being aboard the ship with Sakovitz. [4] Wallace admitted taking part in the crime and testified that Conner, who remained on the dock, had given a signal to begin the killing. Conner also confessed but he later attempted to repudiate his admission. [5] The prosecution accused Ramsay and King of planning the crime. [6] [7]
Governor Culbert Olson commuted the sentences of the trio to time served, and in 1953 Warren, who was then the outgoing governor of California, granted Ramsay a full pardon just hours before he left for Washington to take up his new duties as Chief Justice of the United States. [2] [6]
Earl Warren was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as the 30th governor of California from 1943 to 1953 and as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitutional jurisprudence, which has been recognized by many as a "Constitutional Revolution" in the liberal direction, with Warren writing the majority opinions in landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and Loving v. Virginia (1967). Warren also led the Warren Commission, a presidential commission that investigated the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He served as Governor of California from 1943 to 1953, and is the last chief justice to have served in an elected office before nomination to the Supreme Court. Warren is generally considered to be one of the most influential Supreme Court justices and political leaders in the history of the United States.
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