Biography
J. Emma Martin, a Bible Student in San Bernardino, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act and sentenced on July 31, 1918 to three years. An institutional history reports her March 1918 arrest and her return to custody on May 17, 1920 after appeals. She served at San Quentin. Her sentence was commuted June 21, 1920; her release is documented to 1920, but the exact physical discharge day remains unresolved.
1920s custody review: The Senate table identifies July 31, 1918 as sentencing, not prison admission, and June 21, 1920 as commutation to expire at once. The Watchtower institutional retrospective reports arrest a few days after the March 17, 1918 meeting, and entry to serve sentence on May 17, 1920 after appeals. Arrest is therefore recorded only to March 1918, and admission as May 17, 1920 with that retrospective attribution. The reproduced San Bernardino County Sun clipping of June 27, 1920 still describes an order for immediate release, rather than documenting the physical discharge. The retrospective places the end of imprisonment in 1920; the structured release field is left blank pending a physical discharge date, not automatically set to June 21 or June 27. A year-only date would sort before the known May admission in the current storage format. The former July 31, 1921 release and three-year duration were unsupported arithmetic. Earlier pretrial detention and bail are not treated as uninterrupted prison time. The inherited Carson City assertion is not substantiated by these sources; they identify the southern California prosecution and San Quentin custody. Existing photograph retained.
Sources: 1921 Senate hearing, page 89, original table visually inspected; Watchtower, October 2020 retrospective; Reproduced contemporary newspaper clipping, visually inspected.