Biography
Jerry Newson was a nineteen-year-old Oakland shoeshine worker arrested on October 25, 1949 and sentenced to death for a double murder. The California Supreme Court reversed that conviction in 1951, and the murder charges were dismissed after two later trials ended without verdicts. Newson nevertheless remained imprisoned on an earlier robbery plea. His lawyer later reported that parole officials kept him confined for eleven years before a successful habeas petition secured his release.
