Pless Thomas

Pless Thomas was one of the Harlan County, Kentucky coal miners indicted for murder and held facing the electric chair after the 5 May 1931 Battle of Evarts, on framed-up charges arising from the National Miners' Union strike. 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.