Biography
Clara Mishkin was jailed in New York for distributing leaflets denouncing police killings and brutality. The Daily Worker of July9,1930 reports that a magistrate at Morrisania Court imposed a 3-day sentence for the leaflets protesting the deaths of Levy and Gonzalez. The exact arrest, sentencing and release days are unresolved.
Defense lawyer’s account of the leaflet prosecution
The July 10, 1930 Daily Worker identifies International Labor Defense attorney Jacques Buitenkant as appearing for Davidoff and Mishkin in the Bronx prosecution for distributing leaflets calling workers to Gonzalo Gonzalez’s funeral. The paired defendants, leaflet subject and immediately preceding report of their sentences connect this surname-only account with the already recorded case; no new alias or given name is inferred from this article. Buitenkant disputes a New York Times account of his courtroom remarks and says he argued that denunciations of police violence were not criminal libel. This preserves the defense’s actual position and representation, not a judicial finding that every allegation in the leaflet was true. A judge’s characterization of the leaflet is not automatically substituted for the formal charge. The article does not establish a new arrest, sentencing, admission or release day, show completion of the reported nominal sentence, or justify an additional custody case or numerical total.
Daily Worker, July 10, 1930, original pages 2. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
