Biography
Joe Coya was arrested in February 1924 with sixteen other IWW members at a union conference in Sacramento, California. While awaiting trial they were confined together in a single cell, a confinement that became a focal point of IWW protests against California state repression.
The May24,1924 Daily Worker identifies Joseph Coya as an IWW criminal-syndicalism defendant who died of pneumonia contracted while sleeping on the concrete floor at Sacramento County Jail. This report supplies the illness and confinement circumstances but does not itself date death or establish whether death occurred inside jail; the existing independently recorded date is not inferred from publication day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v02a-n058-may-24-1924-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
1920s custody review: The Daily Worker of May 24, 1924, page 2, reports that Joseph Coya, an IWW member held in Sacramento County Jail under the criminal-syndicalism law, died of pneumonia. The University of Washington-hosted IWW Members Killed research timeline identifies Joe Coya and gives May 12, 1924. The existing profile death date is therefore also recorded as the case death-in-custody endpoint, not a release, and the released flag is cleared. The unsupported twelve-month custody total is removed. The inherited February 1924 arrest is retained at month precision only, consistent with the existing biography; its exact day and actual admission date remain unverified. No identifiable photograph was established.
Sources: Daily Worker, May 24, 1924, page 2, original visually inspected; IWW Members Killed research timeline, University of Washington.
