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On August 23, 1927, Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were executed in Massachusetts. From the article:
"Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born American anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920 armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were electrocuted in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison. Both men adhered to an anarchist movement that advocated relentless warfare against a violent and oppressive government.[1]
After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant bias, and anti-left political motives were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pre-trial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts State Supreme Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, and Auckland.[2]
Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form. Sacco and Vanzetti were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927.[3] Subsequent riots destroyed property in Paris, London, and other cities.
Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified belief in their wrongful execution. Additional ballistics tests and incriminating statements by the men's acquaintances have clouded the case. On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that 'any disgrace should be forever removed from their names.'"
"Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born American anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920 armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were electrocuted in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison. Both men adhered to an anarchist movement that advocated relentless warfare against a violent and oppressive government.[1]
After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant bias, and anti-left political motives were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pre-trial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts State Supreme Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, and Auckland.[2]
Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form. Sacco and Vanzetti were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927.[3] Subsequent riots destroyed property in Paris, London, and other cities.
Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified belief in their wrongful execution. Additional ballistics tests and incriminating statements by the men's acquaintances have clouded the case. On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that 'any disgrace should be forever removed from their names.'"
Sacco and Vanzetti - Wikipedia
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Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti edit
This is an edited version of the full documentary by Willow Pond films. Ferdinando Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891–August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Jun...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for reminding us that Italian-born American anarchists Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Massachusetts on August 23, 1927.
Image: 1920 Vanzetti (left) and Sacco handcuffed to each other and being taken from jail to court. Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891–August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888–August 23, 1927) were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals, the two Italian immigrants were executed on August 23, 1927.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tab7nq0swrk
On this day in 1927, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death in the state prison in Charlestown. A jury convicted them of murder and robbery in 1921, but a long struggle was waged to save their lives. The trial occurred during a period of intense prejudice against immigrants and radicals. Sacco and Vanzetti were both. Many people who followed the case believed that the pair were tried for their ethnicity and their politics, not because the evidence supported the charge. Numerous appeals were filed, another man confessed, the case became an international cause celebre — all to no avail. With a large and angry crowd gathered outside, at midnight the lights in the prison flickered. Sacco and Vanzetti had died in the electric chair.
Fifty years after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed August 23rd Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Day.
On an April afternoon in 1920, as the paymaster of an East Braintree shoe company and his bodyguard returned to their factory with a $15,776 payroll, two gunmen opened fire, killing both men. The assailants grabbed the money, ran to a waiting car, and made a clean escape.
What little evidence police could find was entirely circumstantial. They speculated that the getaway car had been concealed before the robbery in a nearby shed, where another vehicle was also stored. When the Italian immigrant who owned that car took it to a repair shop, police moved in. They searched him and two friends who had accompanied him — Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker from Stoughton, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler from Plymouth. Both men were carrying guns and ammunition; on the basis of this scanty, circumstantial evidence, they were arrested and charged with the Braintree robbery and murder.
No one in the state's large Italian immigrant community would have been surprised. Eastern Massachusetts was an uncongenial place for Italian immigrants in 1920. For the three previous decades, the area had absorbed tens of thousands of impoverished Italian peasants. A minority responded to the poverty and exploitation they found here by espousing radical, even revolutionary ideas; a few became anarchists — people who believed that the only way to achieve social justice was to eliminate every form of authority, even if it meant using violence. In 1919 Italian anarchists had bombed buildings in Boston and Newtonville.
Years later, an analyst summed up the trial this way: "Against a masterful and none too scrupulous prosecution was opposed a hopelessly mismanaged defense before a stupid trial judge."
This violence came on the heels of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Like the rest of the nation, Massachusetts was caught up in what came to be called the "Red Scare." The radical movements that so many immigrants joined appeared to threaten the very survival of American democracy. Authorities repressed, harassed, and hounded anyone suspected of being a radical. Many ordinary Americans viewed not just radicals but all immigrants with fear and suspicion, no group more so than Italians. When Sacco and Vanzetti arrived at the Dedham courthouse in June of 1921, it was obvious that they would be tried not just for their alleged crimes but for being radicals and aliens.
The judge, a deeply prejudiced man, boasted about what he would do "with those anarchistic bastards." He allowed the prosecutors to make Sacco and Vanzetti's radical politics central to the case. The D.A. repeatedly attacked the men's loyalty and appealed to the jury to defend native values against immigrants and the ideas they espoused. He browbeat and coached witnesses who were initially unsure until they claimed to be "certain" about their testimony. He may also have tampered with ballistics evidence.
Sacco and Vanzetti did not help matters by lying to the police after their arrest or choosing as their attorney a brilliant but avowed radical who played into the public's and the jury's perception that the defendants were dangerous revolutionaries. Sacco and Vanzetti had alibis, but since they were backed by other Italians, the jury disregarded them. Years later, an analyst summed up the trial this way: "Against a masterful and none too scrupulous prosecution was opposed a hopelessly mismanaged defense before a stupid trial judge."
It found that the judge held strong opinions regarding the defendants but concluded that his attitude "did not affect his conduct at the trial or the opinions of the jury. . . . "
After six weeks of testimony, the pair was convicted and sentenced to death. Then a new drama began, as outrage swept the national, then the international scene. Sacco and Vanzetti's supporters waged a six-year struggle for a new trial, based first on charges that the prosecutor's behavior was duplicitous and unethical, then on new evidence that might have exonerated the pair. But the judge rejected each motion. Even when another man confessed that he and an organized crime gang well-known in the area had committed the crime, the judge dismissed the confession because he considered the man untrustworthy.
A public outcry prompted the governor to convene a blue ribbon panel to investigate the conduct of the trial judge. It found that the judge held strong opinions regarding the defendants but concluded that his attitude "did not affect his conduct at the trial or the opinions of the jury. . . . "
As time for the execution approached, Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter, who would later serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, published a book charging that the trial had been hopelessly flawed and calling the verdict a miscarriage of justice. The book further aroused Sacco and Vanzetti's supporters. Demonstrators marched in the streets of Boston, while over 600,000 people signed a petition for a new trial. It was all for naught. On the night of August 22, 1927, a large crowd gathered outside the state prison in Charlestown. Despite their protests, Sacco and Vanzetti died in the electric chair.
Vanzetti told the court: "You see me before you, not trembling. . . . I never commit a crime in my life."
The guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti is still debated today. Both men won a degree of public admiration for their genuine idealism, quiet dignity, and courage. In broken English, Vanzetti told the court: "You see me before you, not trembling. . . . I never commit a crime in my life." Indeed, no evidence has ever been found that either man had been involved in a violent incident before the alleged murders. But neither man denied being an anarchist, and anarchists did advocate the use of violence. Ballistics analysis done in the 1980s indicates that one of the bullets introduced as evidence did indeed come from a gun owned by Nicola Sacco, but it seems likely that an unscrupulous prosecutor planted the evidence.
Fifty years after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed August 23rd Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Day. "Any stigma and disgrace shall be forever removed from their names." The trial proceedings, he declared, had been "permeated by prejudice against foreigners and hostility toward unorthodox political views." Dukakis did not speak to Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt or innocence, but he acknowledged that the men had paid with their lives for being radicals and aliens."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning
Image: 1920 Vanzetti (left) and Sacco handcuffed to each other and being taken from jail to court. Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891–August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888–August 23, 1927) were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals, the two Italian immigrants were executed on August 23, 1927.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tab7nq0swrk
On this day in 1927, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were put to death in the state prison in Charlestown. A jury convicted them of murder and robbery in 1921, but a long struggle was waged to save their lives. The trial occurred during a period of intense prejudice against immigrants and radicals. Sacco and Vanzetti were both. Many people who followed the case believed that the pair were tried for their ethnicity and their politics, not because the evidence supported the charge. Numerous appeals were filed, another man confessed, the case became an international cause celebre — all to no avail. With a large and angry crowd gathered outside, at midnight the lights in the prison flickered. Sacco and Vanzetti had died in the electric chair.
Fifty years after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed August 23rd Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Day.
On an April afternoon in 1920, as the paymaster of an East Braintree shoe company and his bodyguard returned to their factory with a $15,776 payroll, two gunmen opened fire, killing both men. The assailants grabbed the money, ran to a waiting car, and made a clean escape.
What little evidence police could find was entirely circumstantial. They speculated that the getaway car had been concealed before the robbery in a nearby shed, where another vehicle was also stored. When the Italian immigrant who owned that car took it to a repair shop, police moved in. They searched him and two friends who had accompanied him — Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker from Stoughton, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler from Plymouth. Both men were carrying guns and ammunition; on the basis of this scanty, circumstantial evidence, they were arrested and charged with the Braintree robbery and murder.
No one in the state's large Italian immigrant community would have been surprised. Eastern Massachusetts was an uncongenial place for Italian immigrants in 1920. For the three previous decades, the area had absorbed tens of thousands of impoverished Italian peasants. A minority responded to the poverty and exploitation they found here by espousing radical, even revolutionary ideas; a few became anarchists — people who believed that the only way to achieve social justice was to eliminate every form of authority, even if it meant using violence. In 1919 Italian anarchists had bombed buildings in Boston and Newtonville.
Years later, an analyst summed up the trial this way: "Against a masterful and none too scrupulous prosecution was opposed a hopelessly mismanaged defense before a stupid trial judge."
This violence came on the heels of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Like the rest of the nation, Massachusetts was caught up in what came to be called the "Red Scare." The radical movements that so many immigrants joined appeared to threaten the very survival of American democracy. Authorities repressed, harassed, and hounded anyone suspected of being a radical. Many ordinary Americans viewed not just radicals but all immigrants with fear and suspicion, no group more so than Italians. When Sacco and Vanzetti arrived at the Dedham courthouse in June of 1921, it was obvious that they would be tried not just for their alleged crimes but for being radicals and aliens.
The judge, a deeply prejudiced man, boasted about what he would do "with those anarchistic bastards." He allowed the prosecutors to make Sacco and Vanzetti's radical politics central to the case. The D.A. repeatedly attacked the men's loyalty and appealed to the jury to defend native values against immigrants and the ideas they espoused. He browbeat and coached witnesses who were initially unsure until they claimed to be "certain" about their testimony. He may also have tampered with ballistics evidence.
Sacco and Vanzetti did not help matters by lying to the police after their arrest or choosing as their attorney a brilliant but avowed radical who played into the public's and the jury's perception that the defendants were dangerous revolutionaries. Sacco and Vanzetti had alibis, but since they were backed by other Italians, the jury disregarded them. Years later, an analyst summed up the trial this way: "Against a masterful and none too scrupulous prosecution was opposed a hopelessly mismanaged defense before a stupid trial judge."
It found that the judge held strong opinions regarding the defendants but concluded that his attitude "did not affect his conduct at the trial or the opinions of the jury. . . . "
After six weeks of testimony, the pair was convicted and sentenced to death. Then a new drama began, as outrage swept the national, then the international scene. Sacco and Vanzetti's supporters waged a six-year struggle for a new trial, based first on charges that the prosecutor's behavior was duplicitous and unethical, then on new evidence that might have exonerated the pair. But the judge rejected each motion. Even when another man confessed that he and an organized crime gang well-known in the area had committed the crime, the judge dismissed the confession because he considered the man untrustworthy.
A public outcry prompted the governor to convene a blue ribbon panel to investigate the conduct of the trial judge. It found that the judge held strong opinions regarding the defendants but concluded that his attitude "did not affect his conduct at the trial or the opinions of the jury. . . . "
As time for the execution approached, Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter, who would later serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, published a book charging that the trial had been hopelessly flawed and calling the verdict a miscarriage of justice. The book further aroused Sacco and Vanzetti's supporters. Demonstrators marched in the streets of Boston, while over 600,000 people signed a petition for a new trial. It was all for naught. On the night of August 22, 1927, a large crowd gathered outside the state prison in Charlestown. Despite their protests, Sacco and Vanzetti died in the electric chair.
Vanzetti told the court: "You see me before you, not trembling. . . . I never commit a crime in my life."
The guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti is still debated today. Both men won a degree of public admiration for their genuine idealism, quiet dignity, and courage. In broken English, Vanzetti told the court: "You see me before you, not trembling. . . . I never commit a crime in my life." Indeed, no evidence has ever been found that either man had been involved in a violent incident before the alleged murders. But neither man denied being an anarchist, and anarchists did advocate the use of violence. Ballistics analysis done in the 1980s indicates that one of the bullets introduced as evidence did indeed come from a gun owned by Nicola Sacco, but it seems likely that an unscrupulous prosecutor planted the evidence.
Fifty years after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed August 23rd Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial Day. "Any stigma and disgrace shall be forever removed from their names." The trial proceedings, he declared, had been "permeated by prejudice against foreigners and hostility toward unorthodox political views." Dukakis did not speak to Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt or innocence, but he acknowledged that the men had paid with their lives for being radicals and aliens."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell Sgt Albert Castro SSG David Andrews Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Charles H. Hawes SGT Mark Halmrast PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning
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