Biography
John Fisher was a Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union organizer arrested in the Sacramento criminal-syndicalism prosecution in July 1934. He spent seven months in jail awaiting trial. On February 18, 1935, Judge Dal M. Lemmon dismissed the charges against him for insufficient evidence, and Fisher was released. His case ended before the jury convicted eight of the remaining defendants.
The Daily Worker of February 16, 1935, page 1, expected Fisher's release on the coming Monday as the prosecution removed its weakest cases. That was a forecast at publication, separate from the existing later report establishing his February 18 dismissal and release; no release on February 15 or 16 is inferred.
Daily Worker, August 23, 1934, page 1: The Sacramento dispatch individually lists this defendant among seventeen facing six criminal-syndicalism counts. It describes the Sacramento prisoners collectively as crowded fourteen to a cell, with no beds or blankets for two weeks and a hole in the floor for a toilet. The stated six-to-eighty-four-year range was potential exposure if convicted, not an imposed sentence. The account’s unnamed Chinese detainee is not identified with any named defendant.
Michael Quin's February 19, 1935 Sacramento dispatch reports Fisher physically freed the preceding day for insufficient evidence after seven months of pretrial imprisonment. This corroborates the existing February 18 release and rounded seven-month actual detention; it does not add a second period or establish an exact arrest date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n044-Nat-feb-20-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The Sacramento defense statement dated February 27, 1935, and published March 5, named him among the defendants acquitted about a week earlier. The relative dating does not by itself fix an exact acquittal or physical release date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n055-NAT-mar-05-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
Daily Worker, February 16, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The complete Sacramento roster on PDF pages 17–18 individually names this defendant among seventeen indicted for criminal syndicalism during the 1934 strike crackdown. Printed variants include Lorent Norman, W. H. Huffine and Harry J. Collentz. The threatened six-to-eighty-four-year range is exposure, not an imposed sentence or actual service. This corroborates the existing Sacramento prosecution; no new arrest, personal prison admission, release day or verdict is inferred from the roster.
Individually identified in the Sacramento defendants’ caption. PDF page 19 reports the actual November 26 trial opening, distinct from earlier postponed dates. Eighty-four years was potential aggregate exposure, not the later sentence. No new physical custody endpoint supplied.
