"One of the darkest chapters in Los Angeles court history"

Manuel Reyes, a defendant in the infamous 1942 Sleepy Lagoon murder case in which 12 young Mexican American men were unjustly convicted of the murder of a Mexican national and served nearly two years in prison before their convictions were reversed, has died. He was 82.

A Los Angeles native who dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and began helping his uncle on his garbage-collecting route, Reyes was 17 when he was arrested in connection with the murder of Jose Diaz, a young farmworker who died Aug. 2, 1942, after being found brutally beaten and stabbed at a ranch in Montebello.

Reyes was among 24 young Mexican American men who were charged in the case, and the ensuing trial of 22 of them became one of the largest mass trials in American history.

The trial, which raised constitutional issues and continues to be cited today when appeals are made on the basis of an unfair trial, has been called "one of the darkest chapters in Los Angeles court history."

While being held in Los Angeles County Jail, the 22 defendants were denied haircuts, and they were not allowed a change of clothes during the first month of the 13-weektrial.

Above, Reyes hugs Alice McGrath in 1997. In the 1940's, she was executive secretary of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, which helped get the murder convictions of Reyes and 11 others overturned.