Biography
Juan Ochoa was a Gallup, New Mexico coal miner, married with two young children. He was jailed in April 1935 after the confrontation over miners' evictions in which Sheriff M. R. Carmichael and two miners were killed. Ochoa was among ten defendants prosecuted for murder. At the Aztec trial on October 17, 1935, he, Manuel Avitia and Leandro Velarde were convicted of second-degree murder. Judge James B. McGhee sentenced them to forty-five to sixty years at hard labor in the Santa Fe penitentiary. Ochoa's wife spoke publicly against the prosecution, and the International Labor Defense organized a national defense campaign.
David Clendennen's account in the January 1936 Labor Defender, page 13, reports that the Aztec jury acquitted seven Gallup defendants and convicted Ochoa, Manuel Avitia and Leandro Velarde with a recommendation for mercy. The author describes Judge McGhee's instruction endorsing the credibility of the three principal state witnesses and a local solidarity campaign among farmers and miners. This is an attributed contemporary account of the already recorded trial, not another conviction.
Daily Worker, February 18, 1936, page 5: The Gallup Defense Committee reported that the appeal of Ochoa, Manuel Avitia and Leandro Velarde was expected to be heard in May by the New Mexico Supreme Court. It identified the law firm of former Assistant Attorney General William J. Donovan as handling the appeal and legal defense, and urged funds for expenses. The scheduled hearing is not treated as an actual decision or release, and the repeated forty-five-to-sixty-year imposed terms are not counted as time served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n042-NY-feb-18-1936-DW-Q.pdf
His wife Isabelle’s October 7, 1935 Denver interview, published October 9, dates his Gallup arrest to April 4. She identifies him as acting Communist section organizer and says mine operators had blacklisted him after the 1933 strike. She describes eviction, two children and a reduction of family relief from thirteen dollars to $6.88 monthly. These are her contemporary family and defense observations, not an additional arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n242-NAT-oct-09-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=2
The April 20, 1935 Daily Worker named Juan Ochoa among the Gallup defendants facing first-degree murder proceedings in Santa Fe after the early-April confrontation at the courthouse. The April 19 report described a preliminary hearing, with forty-five defendants appearing and three unavailable through wounds or illness. The report establishes charges and hearing participation, but does not individually establish continued physical detention for every person in its roster. No complete term or exact arrest date is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n095-NAT-apr-20-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
Page 1’s May 10 Santa Fe dispatch individually identifies this Gallup defendant as held without murder bail; 1933 strike leader evicted from Mentmore, state unemployment committee member and recently acting Communist section organizer. It describes fourteen workers held in the state penitentiary death-house area awaiting trial, ten on first-degree murder accusations and four on escape accusations. Pretrial placement in that area does not mean a death sentence was imposed. Bail set does not establish bail posting; later dispositions in the existing record remain distinct. Page 8 calls for trade-union defense. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n113-NAT-may-11-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 8’s Aztec report individually names this defendant among three convicted of second-degree murder in the Gallup case, with a recommendation for clemency. It prints Leandro Velvarde, matched to the existing Velarde defendant. It reports two hours and thirty-two minutes of deliberation excluding dinner, intended state Supreme Court appeals, and Judge James B. McGhee’s warning against demonstrations. The issue is dated October 17 and uses last-night/today wording without a separate dispatch date; this relative wording is retained without silently replacing the existing October 17 trial chronology. This early verdict report does not yet state the later forty-five-to-sixty-year sentence or actual time served. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstreams/34268242-ac0d-472e-8d03-7eb5b704a2c0/download
The October 20 Santa Fe report names this defendant among the three convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to forty-five to sixty years at hard labor. The defense was preparing habeas corpus proceedings to reduce bond pending appeal. The article attributes Sheriff Carmichael’s death to deputies’ crossfire; that is the newspaper’s defense account. An appeal campaign or proposed bond reduction is not physical discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n253-NAT-oct-21-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
Page 4 reports the Denver Gallup Defense Conference, sixty delegates from twenty-three organizations, demanding freedom and reduction of the $25,000 bond for each of the three convicted miners. It accurately gives the imposed forty-five-to-sixty-year term, announces state Supreme Court appeal support, $500 fundraising and a 50,000-signature pardon petition. The article says the Aztec trial ended October 17, with seven acquittals and three second-degree-murder convictions with clemency recommended. These advocacy demands are not posted bail, release, a granted pardon or actual decades served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n263-NAT-oct-31-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The family-relief account names his wife Isabella and two children and reports his forty-five-to-sixty-year Santa Fe sentence. This adds a family identification, without treating an imposed term as completed imprisonment. Labor Defender, December 1935, original PDF page 16. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n12-dec-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=16
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935, pages 1–2: The April 24 Santa Fe report individually lists this Gallup defendant among ten bound over after the preliminary murder hearing, held without bail. It reports murder accusations dismissed against thirty-eight of the original forty-eight and four other defendants retained under $500 bail on prisoner-escape accusations. Its overlapping reference to the ten as held for assisting escape is preserved as the report's wording, without replacing the later individualized charging and trial history. The paper alleges deputy gunfire killed the sheriff and miners; that account is attributed. Continued detention, not a final imposed sentence or exact discharge, is established. Three unnamed released defendants reportedly were immediately seized for deportation; those unnamed transfers are not assigned to this person. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n099-NAT-apr-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Labor Defender, February 1936, PDF page 11: The caption explicitly identifies the Gallup prisoner first from the left in a five-person New Mexico penitentiary photograph. His Christmas letter with Velarde and Avitia on PDF 22 acknowledges five dollars each and continued confinement; the grouped 45-to-60-year range is not completed service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn02-feb-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=11
Gallup jail-start date
An appeal dated September 24, 1935 at New Mexico State Prison, Santa Fe, and printed on October 1, individually lists Juan Ochoa among its ten signatories. The prisoners state that they have been jailed since April 4, 1935. This first-person custody statement supports recording April 4 as the beginning of confinement in the Gallup case. It does not establish a physical release date, a completed sentence or present-day custody. The scheduled October trial is not used as release.
Daily Worker, October 1, 1935, original PDF pages 1–2, especially the complete signed appeal on page 2. Some page 1 text is damaged in the surviving scan; the date and signatures on page 2 are legible and were checked visually.
Labor Defender, January 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, October 31, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
