Biography
Jimmy James was a Black prisoner at Soledad State Prison and one of the Soledad Seven, a group the Black Panther newspaper described as Black militants serving indeterminate sentences. Following the death of a guard at the prison's North Facility, officials isolated fifteen prisoners incommunicado for forty-nine days. The newspaper individually named Jimmy James among seven prisoners charged with murder and conspiracy in the first week of September 1970 and reported that all seven were brought to a preliminary hearing on October 13, 1970. The newspaper said charges against four of the seven were dismissed in March 1971; he was one of the four omitted from its list of the three remaining defendants. This did not end his underlying prison sentence. The underlying conviction, original admission date and eventual physical release remain unverified; the forty-nine days describe a segregation component, not his total imprisonment.
Jimmy James was a Black prisoner at Soledad State Prison and one of the Soledad Seven, a group the Black Panther newspaper described as Black militants serving indeterminate sentences. Following the death of a guard at the prison's North Facility, officials isolated fifteen prisoners incommunicado for forty-nine days. The newspaper individually named Jimmy James among seven prisoners charged with murder and conspiracy in the first week of September 1970 and reported that all seven were brought to a preliminary hearing on October 13, 1970. The newspaper said charges against four of the seven were dismissed in March 1971; he was one of the four omitted from its list of the three remaining defendants. This did not end his underlying prison sentence. The underlying conviction, original admission date and eventual physical release remain unverified; the forty-nine days describe a segregation component, not his total imprisonment.
Source-reported institution: Soledad State Prison.
