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The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti
By Louis Joughin, Edmund M. Morgan PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1976 Louis Joughin and Roberta Morgan Wohlstetter
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-04656-3
CHAPTER 1
WHAT HAPPENED
The chief events of the Sacco-Vanzetti case — from their simple beginning with the theft of a car, to the grim day of execution — occurred within a triangular area which has Boston at the northern point, Bridgewater to the south, and Plymouth to the southeast. Five places are important: an unsuccessful holdup was attempted at Bridgewater, and Vanzetti was convicted of this crime at Plymouth; a payroll was seized and two men were killed in South Braintree, and both Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty of this murder in a Dedham courtroom; subsequent appeals and hearings were held in Boston. Bridgewater and South Braintree suffered the acts of violence; Plymouth and Dedham assessed the penalties. Boston, capital city of Massachusetts and of New England, witnessed the appeals and arguments before the Supreme Judicial Court, the Governor's Advisory Committee, and the Governor. Although the interest of investigators took them to Providence, New York, Atlanta, and Leavenworth, the Sacco-Vanzetti case was essentially the problem and the responsibility of eastern Massachusetts.
The commonplace stealing of an automobile on November 23, 1919, is the first happening of undisputed relevance to the case. Seven years and nine months later, on August 23, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted. This long period of time saw the growth of a long and very complicated legal record; the transcript of the Plymouth and Dedham trials, the numerous briefs on appeal, and other official documents total more than six thousand pages. Fortunately, it is possible to divide this mass of material into five major sections, each of which has unity in both chronology and substance. These are:
First Period. November 23, 1919, to May 5, 1920 (5 months, 13 days). Preparations for the crimes; the Bridgewater assault; the South Braintree holdup and murders; the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Second Period. May 6, 1920, to July 14, 1921 (1 year, 2 months, 8 days). Preliminary hearings; the indictment, trial, and conviction of Vanzetti for the Bridge-water assault; the indictment, trial, and conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti for the South Braintree holdup and murders.
Third Period. July 15, 1921, to October 1, 1924 (3 years, 2 months, 16 days). Motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, argued and denied; five supplementary motions, based chiefly upon new evidence, argued and denied.
Fourth Period. October 2, 1924, to April 8, 1927 (2 years, 6 months, 6 days). The preparation, argument, and denial of appeals based on the conviction and on three of the supplementary motions; the motion for a new trial based on a confession by Medeiros, argued before and denied by the trial judge and the supreme court; the significance of the records of the Department of Justice.
Fifth Period. April 9, 1927, to August 23, 1927 (4 months, 14 days). Sentence imposed by the trial judge; the petition for executive clemency, the hearings and decision of the Advisory Committee, and the denial of clemency; the motion based on the trial judge's prejudice, argued before the trial judge and denied; unsuccessful attempt to bring the question of the trial judge's prejudice before the supreme court; unsuccessful attempts to enter the federal courts; the executions.
The general question arises whether it was necessary that Sacco and Vanzetti spend seven years in jail or prison awaiting the outcome of their bitter struggle. During those years and later, the charge of long-drawn-out and sadistic prosecution was often hurled at the Commonwealth. This is an accusation which simply cannot stand. The docket of the Norfolk Superior Court, in which Saceo and Vanzetti were tried, tells an entirely different story. There was perhaps an unnecessary delay in bringing the men to trial, but the more than three hundred entries indicate clearly that responsibility for the length of the controversy rests chiefly upon the defense attorneys; they chose to fight vigorously, and to present every discoverable additional fact and argument; if they had not done so, the end would have come much sooner. They saw their duty, and it is to their credit that they did not grow weary as the case grew infinitely complex. But this is a very different matter from charging the prosecution or the court with deliberate cruelty. Sacco and Vanzetti may have suffered under a cumbersome or inadequate code, but they themselves prolonged their day in court. They chose to try to live.
It will now be helpful to examine the events which fall within each of the five main periods. An acquaintance with the story of the case will make it easier to grasp the nature of the legal controversy.
FIRST PERIOD. NOVEMBER 23, 1919, TO MAY 5, 192O
Preparations for the Crimes. A Buick car belonging to Francis J. Murphy was stolen on November 23, 1919. This automobile may or may not have been the one used by a group of bandits who failed in an attempted holdup at Bridgewater one month later; its identification is much less certain in the early stages of the investigation than in the courtroom, and even at the trial there is considerable doubt. On April 17, 1920, two days after the South Braintree murders, it is found abandoned some fifteen miles from the scene of the crime; the car was probably the one actually used by the bandits at the scene of this crime, and it was certainly driven by them at some stage in their flight.
The license plates used at the Bridgewater holdup were stolen from a garage on December 22, 1919; those used in South Braintree were taken from a private car between January 6 and January 9, 1920; neither set appears ever to have been recovered.
The stealing of the Murphy car and the two sets of license plates furnishes the only indisputable evidence of the preparations made by the bandits who operated in Bridgewater and South Braintree. Whether these thefts were committed by the same persons, and the degree to which such preparations suggest the work of professional criminals, are questions which later assume great importance.
The Bridgewater Assault. The attempted payroll robbery in Bridgewater took place on December 24, 1919, at about seven-thirty in the morning. Two men, one carrying a shotgun and the other a revolver, attacked a truck in which was the payroll of the L. Q. White Shoe Company. The guard on the truck shot back at the bandits. Within a few seconds the episode came to an end; the truck ran into a telegraph pole; the attackers entered a large passenger car which was probably in charge of two confederates, and at once left the scene. No one was struck by shot or bullets.
Officials of the shoe company immediately engaged the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and the agency operatives made reports from December 24, 1919, through January 8, 1920. These reports were not available to the defense until the spring of 1927; they do not form part of any court record, but they were placed before the Governor and the Advisory Committee.
The South Braintree Holdup and Murders. The major crime in the Sacco-Vanzetti case was committed on the afternoon of April 15, 1920, in the industrial town of South Braintree, twelve miles south of Boston. The payroll envelopes for the Slater and Morrill shoe factories had been made up in the western or "Number 1" factory building; nearly $16,000 was to be taken to the eastern or "Number 2" building, some two hundred yards off. The envelopes were placed in two large boxes and entrusted to Frederick A. Parmenter, a paymaster, who was accompanied by Alessandro Berardelli, a guard. As they neared their destination, Parmenter and Berardelli were shot at by two men who had been leaning against a fence. Both victims died. The exact sequence of events, the point from which the bullets were fired, and the possible participation of a third bandit in the shooting, are the subject of confusing and partially contradictory testimony.
Immediately after the shooting a large dark-colored car moved up the street from east to west; the two murderers picked up the payroll boxes and with a third man got into the automobile. In all probability there were now five persons in the bandit car. As it left the scene of the shooting and passed through neighboring areas the occupants of the car were observed by several persons who later gave identification testimony in court. At one place a railroad-crossing tender was cursed at by a bandit who sat on the front seat. Shortly afterward the car was lost sight of.
Most of the circumstances of the fatal robbery in South Braintree were used by the state to form a basis in evidence for the case brought against Sacco and Vanzetti: there was identification testimony, a detailed consideration of bullets and shells and guns, a disputed cap, and so forth. Two very conspicuous elements, however, formed no part of the prosecution's case. The Commonwealth never in any way connected the stolen money or any other large sum with either defendant. Furthermore, no information was presented to the jury about the other three bandits. In the record these two circumstances play no important part, but they later become important to the logic of the essential issue, guilty or not guilty.
The Arrests. Sacco and Vanzetti were seized by police officers on May 5, 1920, twenty days after the murders at South Braintree and more than four months after the Bridgewater assault. The circumstances leading up to and including the actual arrest constitute a controversial phase of the case, the subject of contradictory testimony and conflicting interpretations. The prosecution offered the relatively simple picture of police investigators who had no certain knowledge of the identity of the criminals they sought, but who knew that suspicion might reasonably be directed toward any Italians of the southern metropolitan area who might attempt to get the use of a car, especially if their conduct was in any way surreptitious. Sacco and Vanzetti met this condition on May 5 when they accompanied a friend seeking his car. Their conduct was reported by the wife of the repair man who held this car. Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested immediately thereafter.
And the general suspicion of the police must have been tremendously strengthened when it was found that both men carried guns. Vanzetti had a fully loaded five-chamber revolver and also had either three or four shotgun shells. Sacco bore a loaded automatic and twenty-three additional cartridges. In other words, "suspicious characters" turned out to be heavily armed.
The explanatory story which the defense developed had a twofold purpose; it was intended to account for the actions of Sacco and Vanzetti and it was also directed toward discrediting the motivation and procedure of the police.
The defendants in their direct examination at their joint trial in Dedham gave as their reason for trying to get hold of an automobile on May 5 the fact that they were nervous about the posibility of arrest as radicals and were seeking a car in order to dispose of incriminating radical literature. Vanzetti supported this contention by showing that he had been in New York from April 26 through April 29 finding out about the mysterious detention of a fellow radical, one Salsedo. And on May 4 the ominous news had reached Boston that Salsedo was dead from an unexplained fourteen-story fall.
Sacco said that he had owned his gun for some years, and excused his carrying of it on May 5 by stating that he intended to shoot off all the cartridges in a deserted spot before his imminent departure for Italy. The need of getting the car interrupted this plan, and consequently he was found with the weapon and cartridges on his person. Vanzetti claimed that his revolver was for protection against robbery; sometimes his business as a fish-peddler led him to carry as much as a hundred dollars for the purchase of fish from the wholesalers. The shotgun shells found on Vanzetti were Sacco's and the avowed intent was to sell them for a small sum which could be given to a radical defense fund.
Subsequent to the murder trial the defense advanced the general argument that many police officers and prosecuting attorneys were in the early months of 1920 eager to assist the federal authorities in rounding up radicals. Sacco and Vanzetti, as professed anarchists, were good prospects for deportation. But almost immediately after their arrest it became apparent that the two Italians might, by a skillful use of the evidence and an effective appeal to current prejudices, be convicted on a capital charge.
In summary, then, the defense held at the trial that Sacco and Vanzetti were nervously seeking a car to dispose of radical literature, and that they were carrying guns for innocent reasons; afterward it was maintained that the police and prosecution had belatedly and accidentally unearthed a couple of appropriate victims.
SECOND PERIOD. MAY 6, 1980, TO JULY 14, 1921
Preliminary Hearings. Immediately upon their arrest Sacco and Vanzetti were questioned by Michael E. Stewart, Chief of Police of Bridgewater. They were asked about their movements on that day, whether they were anarchists or communists, and whether they believed in the overthrow of the United States government by force. On the following day, May 6, District Attorney Frederick G. Katzmann questioned Sacco about his knowledge of Berardelli, his gun, his experience in "car riding," his awareness of the South Braintree crime, his doings on April 15, and his movements on May 5. Katzmann asked Vanzetti about the events of May 5, his gun, and his activities in mid-April.
These interrogations were,' in large part, introduced as testimony in the trials. It was made clear by cross-examination, and often by admission of the defendants, that they had given inexact, incorrect, and deliberately false answers to Stewart and Katzmann. They explained their lies by saying that they were afraid of exposing their friends and themselves to persecution as radicals; the prosecution attacked this excuse as inadequate to explain all of the lies; the further defense was offered that those lies which did not relate to the issue of radicalism were in fact innocent errors, and that those errors arose through indifference to the events of April 15, the day of the murders. The answers and manner of Sacco and Vanzetti at these preliminary questionings furnish important evidence as to their consciousness of guilt. Were they afraid, and if so of what?
The time had now come for the District Attorney to decide upon the order of the two prosecutions which he was to undertake, the indictments he would request, and the dates of the trial proceedings.
Katzmann elected to try Vanzetti first, for the Bridgewater holdup, and then to try Sacco for the South Braintree murders. He explained his choice, before the Advisory Committee, in 1927, by pointing out that the Plymouth Court was in session and available for the trial of the lesser crime, while the murder indictment could not be returned to the Norfolk Court before September. He also insisted that the evidence against Vanzetti as a party to the South Braintree crime was not sufficient to warrant charging him with murder until after his trial in Plymouth. Finally, he said that the long delay in getting to the murder trial was "because the defense insisted upon postponement after postponement after postponement."
The defense, in 1927, took a different view. It charged the prosecution with having deliberately arranged matters so that Vanzetti would come to trial for his life with a previous conviction hanging over his head; and Sacco, who had no police record, would find himself co-defendant with a convicted felon. It was pointed out that the Commonwealth had available from the beginning witnesses who could connect Vanzetti with the South Braintree affair.
The Indictment, Trial, and Conviction of Vanzetti for the Bridgewater Assault. Two indictments, assault with intent to rob and assault with intent to murder, were returned against Vanzetti by the grand jury on June 11, 1920. His trial opened in the Superior Court at Plymouth on June 22 before Judge Webster Thayer. A verdict of guilty was brought in on July 1, and on August 16 Vanzetti was sentenced to from twelve to fifteen years.
Some steps were taken toward an appeal but this action became submerged in the larger issue of the murder charge.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti by Louis Joughin, Edmund M. Morgan. Copyright © 1976 Louis Joughin and Roberta Morgan Wohlstetter. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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