Biography
Andrew Onda was a western Pennsylvania Communist Party organizer prosecuted under both Pennsylvania’s state sedition law and the federal Smith Act. Federal agents arrested him on August 17, 1951 while his state trial was underway. He was convicted in the state case, but sentencing was deferred because of his serious heart condition. The federal court severed his case for the same reason, and the state conviction was later nullified after the Supreme Court held that federal law displaced Pennsylvania’s sedition statute.
The August 14, 1952 National Guardian places Andrew Onda’s Pittsburgh federal Smith Act trial before Judge William Stewart. This identifies the federal proceeding, separately from Pennsylvania sedition proceedings; it supplies no new custody interval. Contemporary report, p. 6.
