At the end of the trial, Judge Quinn instructed the jury as to the California law of criminal syndicalism, but refused several of the defense’s requests for instructions. He did not instruct the jury that Whitney could be convicted only if she specifically intended to act in a way forbidden by the law.[47] Significantly, Whitney’s lawyer did not request that the court give an explicit “clear and present danger” instruction – that is, whether at the time of Whitney’s active association with the Communist Labor Party of California, its activities (including the endorsement of the IWW) created a clear and present danger of the sort of sabotage, terror, or violence prohibited as “criminal syndicalism” by California law. The importance of that missing instruction would later become pivotal.
It took six hours on Friday, February 20, for the twelve jurors to reach consensus: guilty on count 1 (knowing membership or organization of an association “assembled to advocate, teach, aid and abet criminal syndicalism”). After the court refused to extend Whitney’s bail of $2,000 pending an appeal, she was immediately taken to the county jail. When she returned to Judge Quinn’s courtroom four days later to receive her sentence, the chamber was packed. “As (Anita) entered,” reporter Alma Reed described in a special story for the New York Times, “I was present to witness the silent tribute of 300 men and women prominently identified with the leading social service and public welfare agencies of the state. They arose as she passed down the aisle to her seat, and they remained standing until sentence had been pronounced.” Whitney’s allies were pained to hear the penalty: imprisonment of one to fourteen years in San Quentin.[48]
Whitney’s conviction and sentence inspired
sharply-worded critique by the press on both sides of the divide. The
Sacramento Bee censured her for betraying her social and cultural status to
consort with outlaws. In contrast, the San Francisco Call commended
her: “The colonists were wrong when they burned witches; the people were wrong
when they spat upon the abolitionists. And the people of California may be
equally wrong when the send Anita Whitney to prison.”[49]
Moreover, a host of distinguished voices rose up to condemn the injustices done
to Whitney. Religious leaders, politicians, and civic and civil rights
organizations pointed to the Whitney case as a telling example of the perils of
indiscriminate red-baiting.[50]
