Bartolomeo Vanzetti Case

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two Italian born anarchists living in the United States. The jury convicted and sentenced to death, both Sacco and Vanzetti, for the murder of a guard, and a paymaster, during the armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company. Nicola Sacco was a shoe operative, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti was a fish peddler, ordinary men with differing beliefs from the general public. The jury charged and convicted them of murder for their heritage and beliefs. Sacco and Vanzetti, while unable to prove their innocence, were given an unjust and racist trial. They were guilty in the minds of the judge and jury, before even stepping into the courthouse. In 1919, a bomb went off outside the house of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Anarchist had sent the bomb through the mail to the Attorney General Palmers house. The following months were known as the red scare. Antiradicalism was running high in the United States, and thousands of immigrants with anarchist beliefs were being deported; their crime was their opinion. When two men were killed outside the Slater and Morrill Shoe
Company, the police immediately suspected anarchist. When Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested, they were both carrying guns, which led many to believe this was all but a confession of guilt. The police found anti-government pamphlets, anarchist literature, and a bomb manual in their car. Their ensuing trial was incredibly unjust, and on September 16, 1920 when another bomb went off outside Wall Street. The public believed that the bombing was done in retaliation for Sacco and Vanzetti. The Wall Street bombing only furthered Sacco and Vanzetti’s guilt in the eye of the public. Aside from the unpopular public opinion of the two men, the Judge, and jury were biased against them. Judge Webster Thayer had specifically asked to be put on this case, because of his hatred toward anarchist. Judge Thayer did influence the jury, by asserting the guilty manner of the men and emphasizing their Italian heritage. The jury was filled with men chosen for their masonic views. Most of the jury came from quiet residential suburbs in Boston, and would have held the same anti-immigrant and anti-radical view that the rest of the country supported. The witnesses and testimonies used against Sacco and Vanzetti were inaccurate from each other, while testimonies on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti were highly plausible. Sacco, during the time of the murder, claimed to be with a passport administrator, because he wanted to go back to Italy and visit his family. The official Italian consulate in Boston agreed that Sacco was there with him, making it impossible for him to be at the murder scene. Vanzetti had an alibi too. He claimed to be working his fisherman job the whole day, and his various customers were witnesses to his work. However, all the witnesses to both Sacco and Vanzetti’s alibi’s were Italian. Thus, with the anti-alien sentiment in the United States, their testimonies were glossed over. In addition, Sacco and Vanzetti spoke broken English, and had many misunderstandings of the questions asked by the prosecution. Their broken English only furthered anti-alien sentiment against the two men. The prosecution had many eyewitnesses to the crime, but their testimonies varied greatly. Even when a psychologist, Dr. Morton Prince, discredited the star witness, Miss Splaine, because it would have been psychologically impossible for her to have seen and remember all the precise details that she gave, the judge and jury never wavered on their steadfast belief that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty. The jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of 1st degree murder on July 14th, 1921, after only a few hours of deliberation.
The defendants immediately made a series of appeals. The appeals were made on the basis of abysmal testimonies, prejudice against them, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. Celestino Madeiros confessed to participating in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang. However, Judge Thayer denied all the appeals and refused to upset the verdict based on the confession. Because of the publicity that the case had garnered, the governor of Massachusetts, Alvan T. Fuller, created the Lowell Committee to review the case. However, like the trial before, the committee ignored evidence of innocence, and focused only validating the guiltiness of the two men. Sacco and Vanzetti were both executed by electrocution through an electric
chair. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were given an unjust trial. Their alien blood, anarchist views, broken English, a popular public opinion against them, were the main factors in the confirmation of their guilt. Despite having strong alibis and witnesses to their innocence, they were deemed guilty. They were wrongly convicted and charged with murder. Their deaths are stains on the Unites States judicial system.