Biography
Marvin Smith was a California prisoner, transferred from Soledad to San Quentin, who became a figure in the prison movement. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and with holding guards hostage but was acquitted by a jury; San Quentin officials nonetheless kept him locked in a maximum-security adjustment center. In 1971 he filed suit in U.S. District Court to bar the prison from punishing him for acts of which a jury had acquitted him. The underlying incident, per The Black Panther, was his stepping in to break up a fight between a guard and another inmate, Johnny Miller — who had witnessed a guard's misconduct and refused a payoff.
The March 27, 1971 Black Panther reported that Marvin Smith had been transferred from Soledad to San Quentin in November 1970 and kept in maximum security despite acquittal of assault and hostage charges. A federal civil-rights suit challenging his treatment was filed on March 16, 1971.
