Convicted of manslaughter in December, 1942, when a man she was having an affair with named Ernest Dempsey was shot and killed by the gun she was holding. The decision was reversed on appeal in March, 1944, when attorney Crispus Wright successfully argued that the court had failed to instruct the jury in the law of self-defense during the original trial. Charles Butler, who was in charge of Central Casting's African American division, appeared as a character witness (and was, according to the California Eagle's entertainment correspondent Harry Levette, extremely persuasive).
