from District 5 (Yablonski's district), permission to intervene in the DOL suit as a complainant, which kept Yablonski's election fraud suit alive. Labor Secretary George P. Shultz assigned 230 investigators to the UMWA investigation and Attorney General Mitchell ordered the FBI to join the murder inquiry. The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959 regulates the internal affairs of labor unions, requiring regular secret-ballot elections for local union offices and providing for federal investigation of election fraud or impropriety. DOL is authorized under the act to sue in federal court to have the election overturned. By 1970, however, only three international union elections had been overturned by the courts. Gilly, Martin and Vealey were arrested days after the assassinations and indicted for Yablonski's death. All were convicted of first-degree murder. Gilly and Vealey were sentenced to death (the death sentences were later reduced to life in prison due to Furman v. Georgia); Martin avoided execution by pleading guilty and turning state's evidence. Eventually, investigators arrested Paul Gilly's wife, Annette Lucy Gilly; her father Silous Huddleston; Albert Pass (who had given the money to pay the conspirators for murder) and Pass's wife. All were convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, in trials extending into 1973. (Both Annette Gilly and her father Silous Huddleston pleaded guilty in 1972, receiving life sentences to avoid the death penalty.) Miners for Democracy (MFD) formed in April 1970, while the DOL investigation of the 1969 election continued. Its members included most of the miners who belonged to the West Virginia Black Lung Association and many of Yablonski's supporters and former campaign staff. MFD's support was strongest in southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and the panhandle and northern portions of West Virginia, but MFD supporters existed in nearly all affiliates. The chief organizers of Miners for Democracy included Yablonski's sons, Joseph (known as "Chip") and Ken, Mike Trbovich, and other union supporters. DOL filed suit in federal court in 1971 to overturn the 1969 UMWA election. After several lengthy delays, the suit went to trial on September 12, 1971. On May 1, 1972, Judge William Bryant threw out the results of the 1969 UMWA international union elections. Bryant scheduled a new election to be held during the first eight days of December 1972. In addition, Bryant agreed that DOL should oversee the election to ensure fairness. On May 28, 1972, MFD nominated Arnold Miller,