Sacco and Vanzetti

On April 15, 1920, in South Braintree, Massachusetts, two men robbed and killed the paymaster and guard in the parking lot of a local shoe factory. Less than a month later Nicola Sacco and Bartolomec Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and known anarchists, were arrested for the robbery and murders. In 1921 the two were con-victed of the crimes and sentenced to death. Even though a great deal of doubt existed concerning their guilt, they were executed on August 23, 1927. Were Sacco and Vanzetti guilty as charged, or was this a terrible miscarriage of justice? There was so much evidence presented in the trial that it is not possible to discuss all of it here. However, since the guilt or innocence of an in-dividual often depends on his ability to establish an alibi, and on how credible his alibi witnesses are, we will focus primarily on that aspect of the case to answer the question of their guilt or innocence.

There was a great deal of evidence presented at the trial regarding Sacco and Vanzetti's whereabouts during the time the crimes were committed. Many witnesses testified concerning where they thought the two were at the time of the crime. The authors who write about the case interpret the evidence differently, each according to whether his/her conclusion finds Sacco and/or Vanzetti guilty or innocent. There is one exception to this and that is Brian Jackson. He comes to no firm conclusion as to the guilt or innocence of the two men.

Author of The Black Flag: A Look back at t

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evidence from witnesses who swore that Vanzetti was somewhere else when the crime was committed. Joseph Rosen, a cloth peddler selling his wares in Plymouth that day, testified that he had been with Vanzetti around noon on April 15, 1920. Rosen further testified that he remembered the date well because that evening when he went to Whitman " . . . the town was all excited. It was all boiling about the South Braintree murder . . . " (Ehrmann 337). Author Robert Montgomery presents a case that he believes proves the guilt of both men. Montgomery attacks the people who said they saw Sacco and Vanzetti in places far from South Brain-tree on that day. Joseph Rosen's testimony in favor of Vanzetti must be discounted, concludes Montgomery, because it was "confused and contradictory" (Montgomery 132). One piece of 'contradictory' evidence that Montgomery refers to is a difference of one half hour between the time Rosen said he saw Vanzetti at the pre-liminary hearing and what he said at the trial. Another time Rosen lied, says Montgomery, was when he said he remembered that date because his wife had paid a bill that day. At the preliminary hearing Rosen had said it was a poll-tax bill and at the trial he said it was a gas bill that his

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