Sacco and Vanzetti :It was 80 years ago today...

Wikipedia:

Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were two Italian-born American anarchists, who were arrested, tried, and executed via electrocution in Massachusetts for the charge of murder and theft. There is much controversy regarding their guilt, stirred in part by Upton Sinclair's 1928 novel Boston. Critics of the trial have accused the prosecution and trial judge of allowing anti-Italian, anti-immigrant, and anti-anarchist sentiment to influence the jury's verdict. ...


While the prosecution staunchly defended the verdict, the defense, led by radical attorney Fred Moore, dug up many reasons for doubt. Three key prosecution witnesses admitted they had been coerced into identifying Sacco at the scene of the crime. But when confronted by DA Katzmann, each changed their stories again, denying any coercion. In 1924, controversy continued when it was discovered that someone had switched the barrel of Sacco's gun. Three weeks of private hearings followed but the mystery was never solved. Other appeals focused on the jury foreman and a prosecution ballistics expert. In 1923, the defense filed an affidavit from a friend of the jury foreman who swore that prior to the trial, the man had said of Sacco and Vanzetti, "Damn them, they ought to hang them anyway!" That same year, a state police captain retracted his trial testimony linking Sacco's gun to the fatal bullet. Captain William Proctor claimed that he never meant to imply the connection and that he had repeatedly told DA Katzmann there was no such connection but that the prosecution had crafted its trial questioning to hide this opinion.

Adding to the growing conviction that Sacco and Vanzetti deserved a new trial was the conduct of trial judge Webster Thayer. During the trial, many had noted how Thayer seemed to loathe defense attorney Fred Moore. Thayer frequently denied Moore's motions, lecturing the California-based lawyer on how law was conducted in Massachusetts. On at least two occasions out of court, Thayer burst into tirade. Once he told astonished reporters that "No long-haired anarchist from California can run this court!" According to onlookers later who swore out affidavits, Thayer also lectured members of his exclusive clubs, calling Sacco and Vanzetti "Bolsheviki!" and saying he would "get them good and proper." Following the verdict, Boston Globe reporter Frank Sibley, who had covered the trial, wrote a scathing protest to the Massachusetts attorney general condemning Thayer's blatant bias. Then in 1924, after denying all five motions for a new trial, Thayer confronted a Massachusetts lawyer at his alma mater, Dartmouth. “Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day?" the judge said. "I guess that will hold them for a while! Let them go to the Supreme Court now and see what they can get out of them!” The outburst remained a secret until 1927 when its release heightened the suspicion that Sacco and Vanzetti had not received a fair trial. ...