Biography
Romain Johnson was a farmhand held in Cumberland County, New Jersey, in 1935, initially on an alleged technical parole violation and later accused of the murder of Minnie Horuvitz. A September 2 Daily Worker dispatch reports that a lynch mob tried to storm the county jail the preceding Friday and that Johnson had been transferred to the State Prison at Trenton for safekeeping. The newspaper alleged that police had used brutal questioning to obtain a confession. It separately reports an earlier release on April 12, 1935 after the minimum time on a three-to-five-year term. The prior charge and precise current custody endpoints are not stated.
Sources and evidence limits
Daily Worker, National Edition, September 3, 1935, original PDF page 3.
The original prints Romain Johnson, not Roman Johnson or Romaine Fitzgerald. Explicit county-jail confinement and transfer to Trenton establish actual custody. The reported lynch-mob threat and alleged police coercion establish the civil-rights defense context; the newspaper allegations are attributed, not adopted as judicial findings. The preceding Friday resolves to August 30, but that is the mob attempt, not an inferred arrest or transfer date. April 12, 1935 belongs to a separate earlier imprisonment, not release from the current murder/parole case. No length is calculated from the minimum of the reported sentence.
No unverified birth or death date, demographic category, organizational affiliation, sentence forecast or present custody status is inferred.
Separate earlier imprisonment
The September 2, 1935 Trenton dispatch, published September 3, says Johnson had been released April 12 last after serving the minimum time on a three-to-five-year term. That completed earlier term is recorded as a separate case ending April 12, 1935. The earlier charge, admission date, sentencing date and actual completed duration are not supplied. Neither three years nor another duration is calculated from the sentence range. The later Cumberland County parole/murder detention and transfer to Trenton remain a separate case with unknown admission and release endpoints. The August 30 lynch-mob attempt is not an admission or release date.
Daily Worker, September 3, 1935, original PDF page 3, Lynch Mobs Storm Jail; Negro Moved.
