Biography
Leonard Doherty was a member of the Marine Workers’ Industrial Union and Trade Union Unity League who supported the Boston needle-trades strike. Police arrested him on a picket line in February 1930 and charged him with assault. He was held in Suffolk County Jail while Canadian authorities sought his extradition on an allegation that he had committed a murder in Ottawa in 1925. The International Labor Defense challenged the case as an attempt to remove an active union organizer. The Canadian Defense League joined the campaign at its April 1930 conference in Hamilton. The effort to extradite Doherty was defeated, and he was freed later that year.
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Leonard Doherty, a term of 2 months, the year 1930 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location Suffolk County Jail, Boston, Massachusetts. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
Page 1 prints a jail letter signed Leonard D. Doherty, although the introduction prints Leonard H. Doherty. It thanks the ILD for counsel, financial help, reading material and visits. The account links his arrest to needle-trades strike picketing and alleges an attempted Canadian murder frame-up, which he denied, saying he had never been there. The letter establishes continuing custody at writing, not a new arrest or exact discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n334-NY-apr-02-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
International Press Correspondence, June 5, 1930, printed page 488 (PDF 4): Engdahl describes marine worker Leonard Doherty in Suffolk County Jail, Boston, facing a purported murder frame-up after militant activity on a needle-workers strike picket line. This contemporaneous defense account corroborates detention in the existing case; its compressed description does not erase the separately documented Canadian extradition issue or establish another arrest or sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1930/v10n27-jun-05-1930-inprecor-Virginia.pdf
The caption identifies Doherty as a marine worker arrested on a Boston needle-trades picket line and being held for deportation to Canada, where police were attempting to prosecute a murder allegation. It distinguishes United States immigration detention from the threatened Canadian prosecution and gives no completed deportation or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n05-may-1930-LD.pdf#page=12
The September 8 report announces an ILD victory defeating the attempted Canadian extradition of Doherty, a Marine Workers Industrial Union and TUUL member arrested on a Boston needle-workers’ picket line in February. It characterizes the Ottawa murder allegation as retaliation for labor activity. The headline reports freedom, but the surviving article ends without supplying an exact physical discharge day; no September 8 release date is inferred.
Daily Worker, April 2, 1930; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
