what was the significance of the sleepy lagoon trial
Sleepy Lagoon murder The resulting criminal trial is now generally viewed as lacking in the fundamental requirements of due process. Seventeen Latino youths were indicted on the murder charges and placed on trial.[3] The courtroom was small and during the trial the defendants were not allowed to sit near, or to communicate with, their attorneys. None of those charged were permitted to change their clothes during the trial by order of Judge Fricke at the request of the district attorney on the grounds that the jury should see the defendants in the zoot suits that were "obviously" only worn by "hoodlums". Every time a name was mentioned by a witness or the district attorney, regardless of how damning the statement was, the named defendant was required to stand up.[2] Judge Fricke also permitted the chief of the Foreign Relations Bureau of the Los Angeles sheriff's office, E. Duran Ayres, to testify as an "expert witness" that Mexicans as a community had a "blood-thirst" and a "biological predisposition" to crime and killing, citing the culture of human sacrifice practiced by their Aztec ancestors.[4]