7. The Hollywood Ten appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States
Unemployed and without the means to support themselves, some of the Hollywood Ten began to serve the sentences imposed by Congress. Edward Dmytryk, one of the Ten, fled to England, though he later returned and served his sentence. Dalton Trumbo and John Lawson filed appeals. The other eight signed agreements that the findings of the Court regarding Trumbo and Lawson would apply to their cases. The appeal claimed the First Amendment of the United States protected them from the action taken by the HUAC. As the cases worked their way through the appellate courts’ they all disagreed with the Ten’s interpretation of the First Amendment. In April 1950, the Supreme Court received the appeals. It declined, by a vote of 6-2, to hear them.
Ring Lardner Jr, served a sentence of 12 months in the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, Connecticut. There he had a fellow inmate, J. Parnell Thomas. Following his pursuit of the Hollywood Ten, and findings of them in contempt, Thomas ran into legal problems of his own. He placed people on his congressional staff, including his niece, assigned them no work, and received their salaries as kickbacks. When investigated he declined to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment rights. The fraud occurred throughout the period he led the HUAC investigation of the Hollywood Ten. Convicted of fraud and tax evasion, he received an 18-month sentence in Danbury. Along with Ring Lardner, another member of the Ten, Lester Cole, served the sentence Thomas imposed in the same prison, at the same time.
