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Convicted (77)
Half of those convictions, the thirty-nine of the seventy-seven that came in the Magistrates courts, were not for the offense for which those individuals had been arrested. Instead, those convictions were for the offense of disorderly conduct. If the change in charge indicated police lacked evidence to charge them with the offense for which they had been arrested, the decision to nonetheless proceed with their prosecution indicated some evidence that associated them with those acts. Or it could be that police asserted that just being in the crowds around acts of violence indicated an intention to participate in violence, amounting to "disorderly" conduct or behavior. Those arrested for breaking windows were most often instead charged with disorderly conduct and convicted — although given that the basis for the arrest of 40% of those convicted in the Magistrates courts is unknown that pattern has to be be considered uncertain.
Judges in the Court of Special Sessions found guilty a similar proportion of those who appeared before them, twenty-six of thirty-two (81%), with the outcome of ten prosecutions unknown. Although those arrested for riot appeared to be convicted at a lower rate, it was Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators who were released after a politically-charged prosecution. Only those charged with looting and assault were tried in the Court of General Sessions, where a smaller proportion were convicted than in the other courts, twelve of seventeen (70%). All the convictions of those arrested for looting in this court resulted from plea bargaining, which reduced the charges to misdemeanors. The one guilty verdict delivered by a jury came in a case of assault, and was also for a misdemeanor.
The majority of those convicted of the offense for which they were arrested had allegedly been looting. The convictions came in almost equal numbers in the Court of Special Sessions and the Court of General Sessions, with all but one of those in the Court of Special Sessions for petit larceny. Looting cases were a greater proportion of those convicted than of those arrested, perhaps because the possession of merchandise provided evidence of a kind not available for charges of assault, breaking windows and inciting riot.
Judges convicted only three of the eight white men arrested in the disorder: one in the Harlem Magistrates court, Leo Smith, of disorderly conduct having been arrested for breaking windows; and two in the Court of Special Sessions, Harry Gordon, of assaulting a white police officer at the beginning of the disorder; and Jose Perez, for possession of a gun. While far lower than the overall conviction rate, those outcomes are not clear evidence of lenience towards white men as three of the five men released, Daniel Miller, Sam Jameson, and Murray Samuels, were Communists whom the district attorney went to great lengths to prosecute for inciting the riot.
Five Black women were among those convicted, with only Viola Woods released. Magistrates convicted three women of disorderly conduct, while judges in the Court of Special Sessions convicted Elva Jacobs, for breaking windows, and Rose Murrell, for looting. That conviction rate is in line with the overall pattern of outcomes, although the small numbers involved reduce the significance of the patterns.