William "Big Bill" Haywood Trial: 1907

By the end of the trial, the jury had seen one of Clarence Darrow's great performances and equally respectable oratory from the prosecution. Judge Wood, however, said very little until the time came for him to give his instructions to the jury. Unexpectedly, Wood's instructions came down heavily on William Haywood's side. Wood reminded the jury that while they might not be convinced of Haywood's innocence, under the law they must find him not guilty unless the prosecutors had proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Further, in effect, Wood's instructions to the jury attacked the prosecution's inability to bring forward other evidence in support of Orchard's accusations:

Gentlemen, under the statutes of this state, a person cannot be convicted of a crime upon testimony of an accomplice, unless such accomplice is corroborated by other evidence.

Whether it was the result of Darrow's eloquence or Judge Wood's instructions, on July 28, 1907, the jury finished its deliberations and, before a packed courtroom, returned a verdict of not guilty.

After leaving Boise and the Steunenberg murder trial behind him, Haywood returned to his radical affiliations, keeping up his support for the Wobblies. When World War I broke out, public opinion and the government turned against the Wobblies and other leftists, who were then considered unpatriotic for promoting the cause of world labor instead of American victory. The Wobblies not only circulated posters and pamphlets denouncing the war, but maintained contacts with the communists who had seized power in the former Russian Empire.

In 1918, the government again brought Haywood to trial, this time for treason. Haywood's luck had run out. The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. While out on bail, Haywood fled the United States for the Soviet Union, where the communist regime granted him asylum. Haywood lived in the Soviet Union for the rest of his life, and after his death in 1928 the Soviets honored him with a burial in the Kremlin.

Despite Haywood's colorful postscript, his earlier acquittal was an important victory for organized labor. The government brought the full weight of the courts and the military to bear against labor but was unable to taint it with the blood of Steunenberg's murder. Because the government was supported by the mining companies, Haywood's acquittal was also seen as a defeat for big business.