Sacco And Vanzetti Essay Research Paper The

Sacco And Vanzetti Essay, Research Paper

The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which was ratified in1868, granted freedom to all United States citizens; even those who were naturalized (immigrants).

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subjects to the

jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they

reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges

or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any

person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any

person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

- Amendment XIV

Though this Amendment was made over half a century prior to the Sacco and Vanzetti case, I feel it did not apply. Sacco and Vanzetti were deprived of life and liberty, as Judge Webster Thayer, the judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti case, sought out their execution and sentenced them. Judge Thayer.s conduct, both inside and outside of the court, was inexcusable and hindered Sacco and Vanzetti from receiving a fair trial. This period worked against Sacco.s and Vanzetti.s fate for its elements of xenophobia, immigration quotas, the Red Scare (1919-1920), and the Palmer Raids. All of these exemplify prejudice, which was prevalent during the “Roaring Twenties”.

On April 15, 1920, two men named Allesandro Berdelli and Frederick Parmenter were murdered near the Slater and Morrill Shoe Factory while carrying a total of 15,776 dollars in South Braintree, Massachusetts. This type of crime was not uncommon in post WWI America.

Sacco and Vanzetti were not originally suspected for this crime, but according to one of their friends, Andrea Salsedo, “They were practically the last of the Italian radicals in New England who had not been jailed or deported in the big anti-alien drive.” Sacco and Vanzetti were suspected because they were Italian immigrants, anarchists, professed draft dodgers, and were involved in union and labor strikes, anti-war propaganda, and numerous minor confrontations with the law. Originally, neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had any previous criminal records, yet they were suspected of committing the murders on April 15, 1920.

Then Vanzetti was linked to the Bridgewater holdup. Vanzetti first encountered Judge Webster Thayer on June 22, 1920, during his trial for the Bridgewater holdup he allegedly committed, known as the Plymouth Trial. Poor translators were brought in to help Vanzetti.s sixteen working-class Italian alibis communicate with the court. Vanzetti, himself, refused to take the stand. He feared revealing his anarchical behavior and radical activity, and due to this, did not take the bench in his own defense. Vanzetti was sentenced to fifteen years in the Charlestown State Penitentiary. This was a harsh punishment compared to the usual sentence of eight to ten years in prison. In The Black Flag, by Brian Jackson, the author points out Thayer.s early biased behavior after the Plymouth Trial; Following the earlier Plymouth trial of Vanzetti for the attempted Bridgewater robbery, at which Judge Thayer presided, he requested Chief Justice John Aiken assign him to preside in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial in Dedham. Such a request was and is radical departure from usual judicial decorum and indicates Thayer.s intense personal interest in the outcome of the trial. It is also highly probable that after

presiding at the Plymouth trial and sentencing Vanzetti to fifteen years for

attempted robbery, Thayer could not claim total impartiality toward the defendants

at the Dedham trial.

Vanzetti.s fifteen years in the State Penitentiary and Thayer.s desire to preside in the Sacco and Vanzetti case were the first indications of his corruption. Why would it matter if another judge took the anarchists. case. Why did Judge Thayer deem it necessary to handle this particular case, especially since he already handled Vanzetti in court. It is obvious what Thayer, a man who had said he, “would show them [Sacco and Vanzetti] and would get those guys hanged,” had in mind. This unique request was one of the many unusual acts Judge Thayer did during the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. It was also reported he made many comments to friends and coworkers about his plans for Sacco and Vanzetti.

Professional, well-respected men, were often the people leaking Judge Thayer.s comments to the public through the newspapers. At first only a few gentlemen would come out, but as the century has aged and the Sacco-Vanzetti trial is still examined closely, more people have come forth with quotations Thayer allegedly said. Arthur D. Hill, a prominent Boston lawyer brought into the Sacco-Vanzetti case by William Thompson, the third lawyer to defend Sacco and Vanzetti,

told the press, Judge Thayer, told me in the 1930.s that every day at noon he telephones his home in Worchester to learn whether it had been bombed. Whether it was before or after it was actually bombed, I do not recall. (To the end of his life he lived in a fear of a second bombing.) That showed his prejudice against the adherents of Sacco and Vanzetti who had threatened his life and the lives of his family and later did blow up his house, and who had by their lying tongues destroyed his reputation

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