The Sacco-Vanzetti Case
Description:... On April 15, 1920, a band of five armed robbers made off with the payroll of a South Braintree, Mass. shoe company, murdering the guard (Alessandro Berardelli) and the paymaster (Frederick A. Parmenter). Two Italian extremists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were charged with the murder and brought to trial in Dedham, the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, before Judge Webster Thayer on May 31-July 14, 1921. Following a worldwide outcry of injustice, Governor Alvan Fuller appointed an independent commission to advise him of the fairness of the trial. The commission's members were Abbot Lawrence Lowell, Pres. of Harvard University, Judge Robert Grant, and President Samuel W. Stratton. In Nov. 1925 Celestino Medeiros, a young Portugese, confessed to the crime. A motion based on Medeiros' statement was argued before Judge Thayer, who denied it. On Aug. 22, 1927 Sacco and Vanzetti were executed.
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