Biography
Jim Caruthers was a Black defendant held at Tucker Farm penitentiary in Arkansas after a rape conviction and death sentence. The Daily Worker of January 31, 1936 describes the defense campaign for him and his codefendant, challenges the identification evidence and reports allegations that police whipped Clayton in an effort to force a confession. The report states that the Arkansas Supreme Court had declined relief and that supporters sought a United States Supreme Court appeal. The paper connects the prosecution to repression of Southern Tenant Farmers Union organizing while saying the defendants were not union members. Their exact arrest dates and eventual dispositions are not established by this source.
The May 23, 1935 Daily Worker reports a stay of execution obtained one week before the scheduled execution, while the defendant was in the death cell at Tucker Farm. Attorney John R. Thompson was preparing an Arkansas Supreme Court appeal for the Caruthers-Clayton Defense Committee. The paper places the case in the campaign against the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and reports the unions financial contribution to the defense. It does not give a calendar date for the scheduled execution or establish a release or completed execution. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n123-NAT-may-23-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
The Camden Chronicle of July 7, 1939 carries a Tucker Prison Farm dispatch dated June 30 stating that Jim Caruthers and Bubbles Clayton died in the electric chair “today.” It identifies their Blytheville prosecution and reports the defense challenge to racial exclusion from the jury. Primary newspaper source, PDF page 1.
