Warren v. Commonwealth

STANLEY, Commissioner.

John Henry Warren, the appellant, Everett Perry and three other men were jointly indicted in the Knox Circuit Court for the murder of Woodrow Smith. Venue for the trial was changed to Laurel County on the defendants’ motion. On a separate trial, Warren was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

On March 31, 1959, the appellant and a number of other labor union miners, then on strike, assembled at Arjay in Bell County and formed a motorcade of forty or fifty automobiles to go out, as appellant says, on picket duty. The motorcade, under the leadership of…