"[36][56], On July 1, 1920, the jury deliberated for five hours and returned guilty verdicts on both counts, armed robbery and first-degree murder. [40], Rather than accept court-appointed counsel, Vanzetti chose to be represented by John P. Vahey, a former foundry superintendent and future state court judge who had been practicing law since 1905, most notably with his brother James H. Vahey and his law partner Charles Hiller Innes. [173] As late as 1932, Judge Thayer's home was wrecked and his wife and housekeeper were injured in a bomb blast. [76] The foreman explained that the shop was always kept busy repairing 20 to 30 revolvers per day, which made it very hard to remember individual guns or keep reliable records of when they were picked up by their owners. From Felix Frankfurter's account from The Atlantic Monthly article: Viewing the scene from a distance of from sixty to eighty feet, she saw a man previously unknown to her in a car traveling at the rate of from fifteen to eighteen miles per hour, and she saw him only for a distance of about thirty feetthat is to say, for from one and a half to three seconds. Galleani published Cronaca Sovversiva (Subversive Chronicle), a periodical that advocated violent revolution, and a bomb-making manual called La Salute in voi! "[146] According to the affidavits of eyewitnesses, Thayer also lectured members of his clubs, calling Sacco and Vanzetti "Bolsheviki!" [172] In December 1928, Di Giovanni and others failed in an attempt to bomb the train in which President-elect Herbert Hoover was traveling during his visit to Argentina.[172]. [196] The story finally appeared in National Review in October 1961. [citation needed], Much of the trial focused on material evidence, notably bullets, guns, and the cap. He used the case to complain that Americans were too sensitive to foreign criticism: "One can scarcely let a sentence that is not highly flattering glance across the Atlantic without some American blowing up. In April 1920, in South Braintree . As Michele Fazio writes in this week's Working-Class Perspectives (new window), while their story is not widely commemorated in the U.S., it reflects tensions around class, race, and politics that still reverberate in . On May 31, 1921, they were brought to trial before Judge Webster Thayer of the Massachusetts Superior Court, and on July 14 both were found guilty by verdict of the jury. On May 31, 1921, Nicola Sacco, a 32-year-old shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a 29-year-old fish peddler, went on trial for murder in Boston. Celestino Medeiros, whose execution had been delayed in case his testimony was required at another trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, was executed first. Demonstrations were held in 60 Italian cities and a flood of mail was sent to the American embassy in Paris. The sense of fear and anxiety over the rising tide of immigration came to a head with the trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco & Vanzetti: Justice on Trial | Mass.gov [76] To reinforce the conclusion that Berardelli had reclaimed his revolver from the repair shop, the prosecution called a witness who testified that he had seen Berardelli in possession of a .38 nickel-plated revolver the Saturday night before the Braintree robbery. [28], Vanzetti was being tried under Massachusetts' felony-murder rule, and the prosecution sought to implicate him in the Braintree robbery by the testimony of several witnesses: one testified that he was in the getaway car, and others who stated they saw Vanzetti in the vicinity of the Braintree factory around the time of the robbery. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Although originally not under. [84], The Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was formed on May 9, 1920, immediately following the arrests, by a group of fellow anarchists, headed by Vanzetti's 23-year-old friend Aldino Felicani. 141ff. [66], In 1987, Charlie Whipple, a former Boston Globe editorial page editor, revealed a conversation that he had with Sergeant Edward J. Seibolt in 1937. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, So Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, and Auckland. [25] Vanzetti also told police that he had purchased only one box of cartridges for the gun, all of the same make, yet his revolver was loaded with five .38 cartridges of varying brands. There was no direct evidence linking them to the crime, butin addition to being immigrantsboth men were anarchists . Tropp, p. 171, Mussolini's telegram to the Italian consul in Boston, July 23, 1927. 761769, "Report to the Governor" (1977), pp. Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted because they were radicals and because they were Italian. Sacco and Vanzetti. Vanzetti testified that he had been selling fish at the time of the Braintree robbery. With District Attorney Katzmann present, Van Amburgh took the gun from the clerk and started to take it apart. Sacco worked as a skilled shoemaker and Vanzeti sold fish. [139], Thayer declared that the responsibility for the conviction rested solely with the jury's determination of guilt. [26], As the car was being driven away by Michael Codispoti, the robbers fired wildly at company workers nearby. [66], After hearing testimony from the repair shop employee that "the repair shop had no record of Berardelli picking up the gun, the gun was not in the shop nor had it been sold", the defense put Vanzetti on the stand where he testified that "he had actually bought the gun several months earlier from fellow anarchist Luigi Falzini for five dollars"in contradiction to what he had told police upon his arrest.