Biography
W. M. Burnett was an Evarts miner jailed in the Harlan roundup after the 5 May 1931 Battle of Evarts, one of the more than a hundred National Miners' Union miners and sympathizers jailed in the Harlan County, Kentucky coal war. The Harlan County, Kentucky coal war of 1931 pitted the Communist-led National Miners' Union against the operators, Sheriff John Henry Blair's deputies, and the state militia. After the 5 May 1931 "Battle of Evarts," in which a gun battle left several dead, more than a hundred miners were jailed: dozens were indicted for murder and faced the electric chair, dozens more charged with "banding and confederating" or criminal syndicalism. Clarence Darrow and the ILD led the defense.
The September 12, 1931 Daily Worker identifies William Burnett among the jailed miners facing murder trial. Its defense account says he was shot while helping a Black miner attacked on the railroad tracks, taken to hospital, and not arrested until many days later. This qualifies the earlier May 7 newspaper-derived account and does not support dating arrest automatically to the shooting or the May 5 Battle of Evarts. No replacement exact arrest day is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n220-NY-sep-12-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Page 2's Harlan ILD statement printed November 11 calls for support against the murder prosecution of Burnett and fifteen others held at Mount Sterling and Winchester, with trials announced for the term beginning November 16. This is pretrial defense mobilization and jail-location evidence; the later documented acquittal/freeing remains preserved and the forecast term date is not an executed court outcome. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n271-NY-nov-11-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
PDF page 4's 1934 review states that a full pardon for the Harlan miner was won after a statewide petition campaign in the murder prosecution dating to 1931. It gives no precise pardon/discharge day. The report is preserved alongside existing acquittal/release descriptions rather than silently treating those different legal labels as identical or a new incarceration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n01-jan-1935-orig-LD.pdf
Contemporary venue-transfer report in the existing Harlan prosecution
The August 29, 1931 Southern Worker reports that the murder cases of Wm. Burnett and eighteen other Harlan miners had been transferred for trial to courts in various Kentucky “bluegrass counties.” The paper criticizes the venue choices and the effect of moving witnesses among courts. This is a change of judicial venue within the existing coal-war prosecution, not evidence that Burnett physically entered or left a particular prison on a new date.
The newspaper names Judge Jones in its discussion of the Harlan proceedings, without identifying an individual later trial judge for Burnett. No conviction, completed sentence, personal admission day or release day is established by the report. The current name W. M. Burnett, existing dates and all case fields are retained; no full first name is inferred from the printed Wm. form.
Source: Southern Worker, volume 2 number 2, August 29, 1931, original pages 1. Contemporary political allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The issue reports a completed murder acquittal and freeing of the Harlan miner it calls Bill Burnett, in a bulletin from the National Miners Union and an ILD statement by George Maurer. The Evarts/Harlan coal-strike context matches the existing W. M. Burnett record. The account attributes the charge to a fight near Evarts last April during an attempted beating of striker Johnson Murphy; the existing overview instead links the roundup to May 5. That incident chronology remains unresolved. No exact acquittal or physical release day is supplied, and no outcome for separately listed non-murder counts is inferred.
Daily Worker, November 11, 1931; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, January 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The November 25 Mount Sterling report describes the earlier Bill Burnett trial as a defense victory. The existing separately documented acquittal is retained; no new exact physical discharge day is supplied.
