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In the Night Court (3)
Magistrate Capshaw adjudicated the prosecution of Claudius Jones, who the New York Herald Tribune reported was charged with "refusing to obey police order to move away from a Harlem corner." Capshaw found Jones guilty and gave him a suspended sentence. He remanded in custody James Smitten, accused of assaulting a white man named William Kitilitz, for investigation of the case. Although the New York Herald Tribune reported Capshaw ordered Smitten returned to court on March 23, there are no other mentions of his prosecution in the sources so its outcome is unknown. A third man, Leo Smith, charged with throwing a stone through a store window, was remanded in custody on bail of $500 for arraignment in the Harlem court the next day. The New York Herald Tribune did not mention that Smith was a white man. He appeared in the Harlem court the next day.
These three men were not the only arrests made by police during the hours that the Night Court operated. An explanation for why no more of those arrested were taken to the Night Court was offered in the New York Post: "when the proportions of the disturbance became evident no attempt was made to use the usual machinery for handling petty offenses."
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- "5 Dying and Scores Wounded as Race Riots in Harlem Subside," Home News, March 20, 1935 [clipping].
- "1 Dead, 7 Shot, 100 Hurt as Harlem Crowds Riot over Boy, 16, and Hearse," New York Herald Tribune, March 20, 1935, 1.
- C. C. Nicolet, "One Dead in Wake of Harlem Riots," New York Post, March 20, 1935 [clipping].