Biography
R. V. Lewis was given a one- to fourteen-year prison sentence for violating the California Criminal Syndicalism Act by taking part in IWW activities and served in a county jail and San Quentin from May 1920 to June 1922. San Quentin prison officials refused to provide medical attention to Lewis when he developed an abscess on his leg, resulting in the amputation of that leg.
The California defense report individually lists the IWW criminal-syndicalism conviction with a one-to-fourteen-year nominal term. Appeals were prospective, not acquittals or releases. This contemporary snapshot does not establish a new physical admission or complete actual-service total.
The One Big Union Monthly, June 1920, vol. 2 no. 6, PDF page 37.
Case
San Quentin State Prison
