Tenney Committee subpoenaed and investigated the members of the Defense Committee in an attempt to uncover Communist ties. Reversal In October 1944, the state Court of Appeals unanimously decided the evidence was not sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict. It reversed the 12 defendants' convictions in People v Zammora 66 Cal.App.2d 166. The appeals court also criticized the trial judge for his bias in and mishandling of the case. After the Zoot Suit Riots, the convictions of the seventeen people were overturned. There was a lack of evidence to convict the defendants to begin with and it was Diaz’s autopsy report that showed that he was highly inebriated and received trauma to the head, which likely could have been caused by his own doing. However, the convictions did not immediately get overturned. It took the efforts of the SLDC and time in order for the government to finally reverse the initial convictions. The SLDC constantly pushed the idea that the government was an attack on young Mexican Americans and emphasized that these injustices could be fought. Not only did they do this, but they also did what they could in order to try and reverse the views that people had on young Mexican Americans. Cultural references The 1979 play Zoot Suit and the 1981 movie of the same name are loosely based on events surrounding the murder trial. In James Ellroy's novel The Big Nowhere, the Sleepy Lagoon murder plays a major role in the story. See also East Los Angeles, California History of the Mexican Americans in Los Angeles List of unsolved deaths References Further reading McWilliams, Carey, "Second Thoughts", The Nation, April 7, 1979 Servin, Manuel, The Mexican-Americans: An Awakening Minority. (1970) McGrath (Alice Greenfield) Papers, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, California External links McGrath (Alice Greenfield) Papers, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, California Sleepy Lagoon Website Pagán, Eduardo Obregón Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. University of North Carolina Press (2003) Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. (1943). The Sleepy Lagoon Case. Online Archive of California. Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. (1944). This is the story of a crime. The Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, via Calisphere. Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee Records (Collection 107). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. UCLA Sleepy Lagoon Symposium (2005) The Sleepy Lagoon