Michael Russo

Released
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:1950s
State:Massachusetts
Support
Communism Communist Party USA
No image available

Biography

Michael A. Russo was one of the Massachusetts "Bay State Reds" — the Communist Party members arrested in 1956 and prosecuted under the Smith Act for conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government. He was photographed with his fellow defendants — Otis Archer Hood, Anne Burlak Timpson, Daniel Boone Schirmer, Sidney Lipshires, Geoffrey Warner White, and Edward Strong — after they won their case in 1957, when the prosecution was dismissed in the wake of the Supreme Court's Yates decision. Beyond his role as a Massachusetts Smith Act defendant, the individual record of his life is thinly documented.

Case

Charges: Conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, under the Smith Act.
Sentence: No conviction — arrested and prosecuted, but the Smith Act case was dismissed in 1957 without a trial verdict. Verdict as recorded: No — the charges were dismissed in 1957 after the U.S. Supreme Court's Yates v. United States decision; the defendants "won their case." Charges as recorded: Conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, under the Smith Act — a McCarthy-era prosecution of Massachusetts Communist Party leaders (the "Bay State Reds") for their political beliefs and association, brought in 1956.
Convicted: No — charges dismissed

Related Cases

Anne Timpson Anne Timpson Daniel Boone Schirmer Edward E. Strong Frank Collier Geoffrey W. White Joseph Russo Margaret Gilbert Otis Hood Sidney Lipshires