Biography
Mitchell Goodman was a novelist and antiwar activist (and husband of the poet Denise Levertov) who helped organize the October 1967 turn-in of draft cards at the Justice Department. He was one of the "Boston Five," indicted in January 1968 for conspiracy to aid, abet, and counsel young men to resist the draft during the Vietnam War, after publicly supporting draft resistance in the statement "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority." Convicted in 1968 and sentenced to two years, he stayed free pending appeal; the convictions were reversed in 1969, and he served no time.
The Daily Iowan’s Associated Press report of June 15, 1968 identifies U.S. District Judge Francis J. W. Ford and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Wall in the Boston draft-counseling conspiracy trial. It reports a guilty verdict and a scheduled July 10 sentencing, not actual prison entry. The statutory five-year maximum mentioned in this report is not the sentence later imposed or time served. The existing account that Goodman stayed free pending appeal is preserved.
