America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion| date = 1977 | pages = 68–69 | publisher = Basic Books}}</ref> the American Mercury censorship case (1926); the Sacco and Vanzetti case, in which two Italian anarchists in Boston were convicted and executed in 1927 for a murder they denied committing; and the Scottsboro case, in which eight black men from Alabama were convicted and sentenced to death in 1931 for allegedly attacking two white women. Hays attended the Reichstag trial in Berlin on behalf of Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian Communist accused by the Nazis in 1933 of burning the Reichstag. Hays also defended labor. He defended coal miners in disputes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia (1922-1935), including the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1922. He defended right-to-strike cases against Jersey City mayor Frank “Boss” Hague. He defended British writer (and CPGB member) John Strachey against deportation. He led the plaintiff in Emerson Jennings vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania conspiracy case. He represented the Jehovah's Witnesses. He argued for the right not to salute the American flag. In 1937, Hays was appointed to lead an independent investigation with a group (called the "Hays Commission") to study an incident in which 18 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in Ponce, Puerto Rico when police opened fire on them. They had gathered for a parade for which the permits had been withdrawn at the last minute. His commission concluded the police had behaved as a mob and committed a massacre. From 1939 to 1943, he represented sociologist Jerome Davis in a libel suit filed against Curtis Publishing, publishers of the Saturday Evening Post magazine and its reporter Benjamin Stolberg. Film censorship case over Whirlpool of Desire From the IMDB entry for Remous (France, 1935) directed by Edmond T. Greville: Albany, New York - Monday, January 23, 1939: "The French film Remous was shown Friday [January 20] to five judges of the New York State Appellate Division in proceedings in the attempt by Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn to get a license to screen it in New York State. The picture has twice been denied a license, first in August 1936, when it was rejected as being "indecent," "immoral," and tending to "corrupt morals." It was again rejected in November 1937. In March 1938, it was screened for the New York Board of Regents, which on April 14 disapproved application for a license. Hays, counsel