Sacco And Vanzetti Trial

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Sacco-Vanzetti Trial: 1921
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Defendants: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Crime Charged: Murder Chief Defense Lawyers: William J. Callahan,
Herbert B. Ehrmann, James M. Graham, Arthur Dehon Hill, Jeremiah J.
McAnarney, Thomas F. McAnarney, Fred H. Moore, Michael Angelo
Musmanno, William G. Thompson, and John P. Vahey
i
P. Williams Judge: Webster Thayer Place: Dedham, Massachusetts
SIGNIFICANCE
The Sacco-Vanzetti case began as a simple trial for murder. It ended as an
international cause in which the world believed that Massachusetts had executed
two innocent men because they held radical views. A study of the trial and its
aftermath provides a superb lesson in how myths are made.
n the afternoon of .\pril 15. 1920, as a shoe manufacturer's paymaster,
Frederick t'arrnenter, and his guard, ,.\lessandro Berardclli, carried che
$15,777 cash pa)-roll in South Bra~nrrec.\lassachc~setts,the)- n-ere killed by ttt-o
men armed with pistols. Seizing the money, t h e m e n jumped into a car containing several other men and sped away. Eye%-itncsses thought t h e murderers
looked like Italians.
At the time, police were investigating an attempted holdup on the preceding Christmas Eve by a gang of Italians cvith a car in nearby Bridgecvacer. Police
Chief hfichael E. Stewart suspected one hfike Boda, whose car was now
awaiting repairs in Sinton Johnson's garage. Stewart told Johnson to call the
police when anyone came to get Boda's car.
A Car to Move Red Literature
Stewart also was bus); rounding up alien communists following raids by the
U.S. Departments of Labor and Justice. hlany were being deported. In hlay, a
radical held on the 14th floor of t h e New York City offices of the Department of
Justice was found dead on the sidewalk below. His friends, including hiike
Boda, decided they had l)e~cerhide a large c1uantit)- of Kccl liter;~rure.T o r r l o \ c
it. they needed Bocla'.; c,ir.
1921
Sacco-Vanzetti
Roda and three others itpprared at Johnson's g:rr;lge. '\lrs. Johnson callccl
Trial
the policc. Johnson ref~r.icilro h,~ndorer the car beci~usci c had no up-to-~late
-license plates. Boda and onc tnan departed on a motorcycle. ?'he other tn.o
hoarded a street car. .irrcsted ab(,ard the c'ir mlnuces I'lter nxre Xicold Sacco and
B~rtolorneot.anr,erti. Sacco c:~rrrzd a .32-caliber pistol loadecl with nine bullets.
and 7.3 additional bullets in his pocket. t'anzetti hiid fully loaded .38-caliber
revol\.er and four 12-gauge shotgun shells. ,ilso found o n Sacco ~ v d sa notice, in
Italian, of a forthcoming meeting at which 1-anzetti was to speak on "the
struggle for existence." T h e two men \c.ere acti\.e anarchists.
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Grilled br D ~ s t r ~.ci t c o r n e ~Frederick
G u n n Katzmann, Sacco said he had bought
the gun t\vo years earlier for $16 or $17 and
had bought a new box of cartridges. Vanzetti
said his gun cost $18 or $19 four or five years
earlier. Neither gun was licensed.
1,'anzetti's shotgun shells put him under suspicion for the failed holdup on
Christmas Eve, when a 12-gauge shotgun
was fired. His alibi was that, as a fish peddler, h e spent a busy Christmas Eve selling
eels for traditional Italian dinners that night.
:It his trial, several witnesses identified him
as the man with the shotgun. H e d i d . n o t
cake the stand to refute them and tvas con1,icted and sentenced to 11 to 1.5 years.
Sacco, meantime, had a solid alibi: H e had
been on t h e job in a shoe faccory when the
attempted robbery occurred. But h e was
held for trial in the South Braintree murders,
for o n April 15 h e had taken the day off.
Defense Committee Organized
Bartolomeo Vanzeti~and
N~colaSacco on the day
Anarchist friends organized the Sacco-I'anzetti Defense Committee. For
three months, it collected money. T h e n the committee hired Fred H. hloore, a
long-haired radical labor lawyer from California. Moore, experienced in handling
underdog cases for Elizabeth Gurlev Flynn, founder of the Workers' Defense
Union, and for the International Workers of the World ( T h e "I.W.W."), saw che
Sacco-Vanzetti case as a cause. "In saving them," h e said, "we strengthen our
muscles, develop our forces preparatory to t h e day when we save ourselves."
'he"
was
passed (Courtesy.
National
PvIoore spent a busy year writing, traveling, and organizing volunteers. T h e
United Mine Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the American
Federation of Teamsters, and the American Civil Liberties Union were among
289
B
AMERICAN
the many or5ani~~ltions
char responded. f'amphlets m-ere printed In batches of
50,000. Publicit)- rcleases flooded the IIIJII rr.eckl>- to 300 ne\tspqpers. 7'he
murder charge was depicted as "a mere d e \ Ice to get them [Sacco and Yanzetri]
our of the \\.a>."
Outdated Bullets and a Cap
Opening .\lay 31, 1971. thc c r 1 ~ revcL~lecl
1
chat Sacco hacl lied about hrs gun.
of
It n.ds se\.eral )ears old. and his box of " n e ~ - "cartritlges contained a n~izcc~re
old bullets that were all obsolete. 'I'he b t ~ l l e tthat killed Berarclelli tvas so
outdated that the state's expert witness c o i ~ l dlocate none like it with \vhich to
test Sacco's gun-except the equally obsolete bullets from Sacco's pocket.
L.anzetci, too, had lied. :\lthough he had said he paid $18 or $19 f o r rt, the
jury learned that his mas a $5 gun. that \.-anzetti had said h e boi~phta nerv box of
cartridges and threw it away ~5 hen sis remained and h e put the111in [he rel.olver,
but that it held only fi.r e and those in the gun tvere not all t h e s3me make. And it
learned that Vanzetti's nickel-plated pistol was identical to that of t h e murdered
guard, whose gun could not be found after [he crime.
T h e n there was the cap found beside t h e dead guard. It was not his.
Sacco's employer testified thar it looked like a cap that Sacco regularly tvore.
When the prosecutor asked Sacco to put the cap on, the defendant, pulling it
down over his ears in trying to prove it was too big, threw the courtroom into
giggling hysterics-but t h e state also put into evidence a cap of exactly the same
size, found in Sacco's home. "Some one of you \rho wears a seven and oneeighth," said tiatzmann to the jury, "tr)- them both on. If they are not identically
the same size, then so find, so find, gentlemen."
Trial for Murder, Nothing Else
Before the trial opened, Judge U'ebster 'Thayer had told counsel o n both
sides that he saw no reason to bring up the issue of radicalism. It was not
mentioned during the prosecution's entire presentation. But on the 29th day,
Vanzetti himself, under direct examination by his attorney Jeremiah J. hlcAnarney, was explaining why the four men sought Boda's car: "We were going to
take the ailtomobile for to carry books and newspapers," h e said. LVhy hadn't h e
told the police that when he was arrested? "Because there was t h e deportation
and the reaction was more vivid than now and rnore mad than now." In a word,
his defense was that he lied out of fear of deportation as a radical.
Under Massachusetts law, since the defense had brought it up. the door
was now open for prosecutor Katzrnann to cross-examine Vanzetti about all his
radical activities. But the jury heard no such questions. "Neither is Radicalism
being tried here," the prosecutor told them. "'This is a charge of murder and it is
nothing else."
*II c
a
Next, Sacco explained that he, too, lied when h e was arrested because h e
feared deportation on a radical charge. And he explained another lie. Upon
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p
arrest, h e had said that h e m7asat work all day April 15. But now his boss testified
that Sacco had taken that da\7 off to s e e the Italian consul ii; Boston about a
passport for a trip to Italy. T h e consular clerk testified that Sacco u7asin his office
at about 2:00P.M. April 1.5, but the alibi mias weak: Sacco had been turned dowll
i~nmediatelybecause t h e passport photo h e offered was too large. While the jury
was being told that Sacco spent an entire day in Boston (several niitnesses for the
defense testified to having seen hirn there in the morning, at lunch, and ill the
afternoon), his business at t h e consulate had consulned only 10 minutes. T h e n
Sacco noticed a spectator in the courtroo:?? whom he had seen on the late
afternoon train home. Sworn as a witness, the nlan could not remember seeing
Sacco b u ~ alas
.
confident h e had been on the train Sacco described.
As u.ith \ianz,etti, prosecutor Katzmann refrained from any line of cluestiolzing that might have led the jury to consider Sacco a dangerous radical.
Bullets Convince Jury
At three o'clocli, j u l s 14,thc ,jury retired. It immediately voted 10-2 for
con\~icrio~i.
'"Then," said one ,juror aftel-\v:~rd:
/\1'1- siarteii d i s c ~ i s s i i ~:hll!rs.
c
rcvle\\-iicitile very iinporr~inre\:~cle~~ce
abour
rt-I:: h~iiict:,.:liiii c~cr~.:i-!od\
hiid a cl-ranre :(I speuli his plri:c. 'i'i~eren.:ls lie\-e!all\- argumenr. tiloligl~.'Kc pisr werr con! inced Saccv :iilcI 1-anzer:i hacl done
\\-liar t l ~ eprriseciirioi~ h'id ci;:irged rhen? v.ith.
Asked iatel- what evidence impressed him inost, another luror said:
The bi~liets,of course. T h a t testimony and evidence on it sticlts i n your
mind. Yoii can't depend on [he witnesses. But [he bulle[s, there was no
getting around t h a t evidence.
'The guilty verdict brought violent reactions around t h e \vorld. Arnerican
consulates and embassies in Europe and South Anlerica were flooded \vith
letters of protest. T i l e Co~7ommunisrJut~matio7?a/urged ail communists, socialists,
t i ~ ~ t i i ~ i i i s~tn~d,eiade cinionists to join in rescuing Sacco and Vanzctti. Demonstrations were mounted in France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal,
and Scandinavia. I t took 10,000 police and 18.000 troops to hold back t h e crowd
besieging t h e American embassy in Paris. Bombs exploded in that embassy and
around t h e ~vorld.O n e destroyed the home of one of the jurors. Judge "Thayer's
house was put under guard.
Vehement Appeals Follow
Over the next six years, the furor raged. Motion after motion for a new trial
was denied. So-called experts examined the pistols, took them apart, wrongly
reassembled thein. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn raised $25,000 in two days to pay the
advance legal fee of Xarvard Law School leccurer and Massachusetts insider
William G. T h o m p s o n , who replaced Moore, the radical outsider. Imprisoned
crinliilals volunteered confessions.
1921
Sacco-Vanzetti
Trial
GREAT
AMERICAN
TRIALS
By 1926, with "Sacco-Vanzetti" a worldwide battle cry, the Massachusetts
Suprenie Judicial Court, the state's highest, rejected an appeal. T h e International Labor Defense ( I L D ) (later to defend the Scottsboro Boys, [See separate
entry]), set u p by the commu~iists,received only some $6,000 of niillions raised
in the names of Sacco and Vanzetti. Harvard Law professor Felix Frankfurter
(later to serve on t h e U.S. Supreme Court), In an Aflant~rA4onthiyarticle, attacked
t h e Jury, witnesses, verdict, and judiciary.
T h e state's supreme court, having already
rejected Thompson's appczl, now upheld
the judge: H e had committed, it declared,
no errors of law or abuses of discretion.
Lowell Committee Reviews Case
In June 1927, on Thompson's urging,
Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller,
who was considering an appeal for cleme n q - , appointed an Advisory Conin~ittee
heacied by Fiar~~ard
president Abbott La\*;rcnce i,i?\vell to rc\-ie~li:lit entlrc case. Afte.two i l ~ o ~ ~ t and
l l s , after himself i n ~ ~ ~ s \ - i e ~ ~ ~ i n g
102 witnesses in a d d ~ t i o nto thosc from the
trial, he agreed wit11 the Lowell Committee's conclusion: Sacco and \:anzetti had a
fair trial and were guilty.
The execut~onof two men
who held rad~cal111ews
provoked outrage
lhroughout the world
(Courtesy, L~braryof
Congress)
Worldwide protests grew more violent. A London demonstration injured 40
people. Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Buenos Aires,
and countless other cities saw riots, Now
pickerers before the State House in Boston,
inciuding novelis~sJohn Dos Passos and
Katherine Anne Porter, humorist Dorothy
Parker, and poet Edna St. 17incent Millay,
were arrested. All Boston public buildings
were garrisoned by the police, who for t h e
first time in memory permitted no meetings
on Boston Common. Columnist Heywood
Broun found his column suspended by t h e
N e w York Mio?-ldfor his violent comments on Lowell.
By now, Judge Thayer had denied a half-dozen motions for a new trial, t h e
state superior court had denied another, and the state supreme judicial court had
turned down four appeals. Several petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, for
extensions of time, and for stay of execution were denied by the Circuit Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit of the United States and by U.S.Supreme Court
justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Harlan F. Stone.
were
spec