Once More Unto the Breech: The Firearms Evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti Case Revisited: Part I

Frankfurter

,

F.

, , , , , p. 9. Novelist Katherine Anne Porter agreed with Justice Frankfurter's assessment. The murders were, to her, “a commonplace crime by quite ordinary, average, awkward gangsters.” Porter, K. A., The Never-Ending Wrong, Secker & Warburg, London, 1977, p. 3. But defense counsel Moore saw the murders as of a baser, meaner sort. “The crime was a peculiarly atrocious one, a peculiarly vicious one,” he admitted in his summation at the trial (II - 2124). Even on this seemingly nondebatable point, the Sacco and Vanzetti case has been embroiled in ceaseless controversy.

Of the plethora of books devoted to the Sacco and Vanzetti case, I have found that the most rewarding, if not always the most accurate, are:

Russell

,

F.

, , , , : Joughin, C. L. and Morgan, E. M., The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1948; Jackson, B., The Black Flag, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Boston, 1981; Montgomery, R. H., Sacco-Vanzetti: The Murder and the Myth, The Americanist Library, Boston, 1965; Ehrmann, H. B., The Case That Will Not Die, Little, Brown, Boston, 1969; Gunther, J. D. and Gunther, C. D., The Identification of Firearms, John Wiley, New York, 1935, chap. II; Frankfurter, F., Note I. Young, W. and Kaiser, D. E., Postmortem, The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1985. The Young and Kaiser book, although the latest on the subject, is crippled by its failure to take into full account the findings of the 1983 Select Committee, of which this author informed Professor Kaiser well in advance of his book's publication. Another book, by the redoubtable Francis Russell, is understood to be under full sail at this time.

Boyer

,

R.

, , , , . The Sacco and Vanzetti case has insinuated its way into a current college textbook on psychology, in which the better part of a chapter is given over to the deficiencies in the eyewitness identifications, particularly at Vanzetti's solo trial in Plymouth, MA. The authors, however, confusedly and erroneously intermingle their discussions of the Plymouth and Dedham trials so that it is trying to sort out which one is being addressed at any point. Worchel, S. and Shebilske, W., Psychology: Principles and Applications, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983, chap. 6.

Thorwald

,

J.

, , , , , p. 438; Sifakis, C., The Encyclopedia of American Crime, Facts on File, New York, 1982, p. 633; Montgomery, Note 2, p. 344.

Russell

, Note 2, pp. 212, 233.

Jackson

, Note 2, p. 137.

Montgomery, Note 2, chap. 11, pp. -.

Montgomery quotes insider sources to the effect that Dr. Magrath matched Sacco's hair to hair taken from the cap, but that Katzmann balked at using this finding as evidence. Montgomery, Note 2, pp. 99–100. Sherlock Holmes bedazzled Dr. Watson with his deductive powers in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” when Holmes' scrutiny of a hat led him to conclude that its owner was “highly intellectual, fairly well-to-do,” possessed of “foresight,” a wife who “has ceased to love him,” and lived without “gas laid on in his house.” Holmes' perceptive talents could have been put to good use on the putative Sacco cap.

Doyle

,

A. C.

, , , , , pp. - (pp. 246–247).

In a telephone conversation with the author on 9 Aug. 1984, Ms. Kathryn M. Carey, Chief Conservator of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, indicated that a notation in the Sacco and Vanzetti files reveals that the clothing of the victims was destroyed in 1927, rather than having been transferred with the other items of physical evidence to the Massachusetts State Police, since it was moldy and deteriorated. Her files did not reflect the whereabouts or the disposition of the Sacco cap. These revelations are just more proof of the slipshod methods of handling the physical evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti case in the twenties.

See illustrations from the New York World, Pravda, Le Drapeau Rouge (Brussels), Bandera Proleteria (Buenos Aires), New York Daily Worker, The Nation, all in

Lyons

,

F.

, , , , .

Millay

,

E. St. V.

, “,” , Vol. , , p. 34. Also see her “Justice Denied in Massachusetts,” Collected Lyrics, Harper & Row, New York, 1943. An extensive cataloguing of verse references appears at pp. 576 to 580 of Joughin and Morgan, Note 2.

Morgan, “,”  0017-811X, Vol. , , pp. - (p. 546).

Montgomery, Note 2.

Llewellyn

,

K.

, ,” in ,

J.

 

Michael

and

H.

 

Wechsler

, Eds., , , , pp. -. In a similar vein, Doctor Martin Luther King said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” “Letter from Burmingham City Jail,” The New Leader, 24 June 1963, p. 3.

This statement may be more of the apocrypha of the Sacco and Vanzetti case. It is not that Vanzetti was beyond the pained lyricism of this statement. His impassioned and memorably literate declarations at his sentencing (V - 4896–4904) and in his letters during his imprisonment attest to his ability to declaim in a fashion sufficient even to please the pulse of a Roman senator. This quote appears in

Feuerlicht

,

R. S.

, , , , , p. 344. A shortened version of Vanzetti's statement appears in Russell, F., “A Retrospect of the Sacco-Vanzetti Trial: Tragedy in Dedham,” American Heritage, Oct. 1958, pp. 52–57, 109, at p. 55 where Russell attributes this statement to Vanzetti's “noble last address to the court.” The court records on the contrary, do not reflect such a statement.

District Attorney Katzmann could not have made his position plainer than he did in his summation when he proclaimed: We say in Plain English that on the evidence we have proven to you beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant Sacco fire (fired?) a bullet from a Colt automatic that killed Allesandro Berardelli: that some other person whose name we do not know and who is not under arrest, in custody or upon his trial, killed the man Frederick A. Parmenter with a Savage automatic, and that that was not the defendant Vanzetti. II-2183.

II - 2244–2245.

Moenssens

,

A. A.

and

Inbau

,

F. E.

, , 2nd ed., , , , pp. -.

, 180 Mass. 492, 62 N.E. 748 ().

Gunther and Gunther, Note 2, p. 256, footnote 30.

The Frankford Arsenal did little touted pioneering research in cartridge case identifications in connection with the military riots at Brownsville, TX in 1907. See

Hatcher

,

J. S.

,

Jury

,

F. J.

, and

Weller

,

J.

, , , , , pp. -.

I - 911.

II - 1405.

II - 1445–1447.

II - 1466.

II - 1464.

Hatcher, Jury, and Weller, Note 20, p. 114.

I - 886.

Gunther and Gunther, Note 2, p. 88.

The sad tale of Prevost's woe is told in

Borchard

,

E.

, , , , , pp. -.

I - 887.

I - 900.

IV - 3608–3635.

V - 5006.

V - 5017–5018.

Goddard

,

C. H.

, “,” , Vol. , , pp. - (p. 255).

Pamphlet entitled “That Man from Auburn” in files of Sacco & Vanzetti Case in Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Tribunal.

Letter from Leanore F. Bona, Supervisor, Records Division, Office of Student Information Services, Columbia University, undated, received 20 April 1984.

V - 5018.

IV - 3634.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, p. 190.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, pp. -.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, p. 14.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, p. 15.

I - 133.

I - 136.

I - 134.

I - 77. District Attorney Katzmann, in his summation (II - 2203), also counted 22 loose cartridges as found in Sacco's pocket, but something must have gone awry with his arithmetic, or that of the court stenographer, since he also said Sacco had “32 death dealing automatic cartridges, 9 of them in the gun ready for action.” 9 from 32 leaves 23 not 22, even under the strictures of the “old math” of 1921.

I - 762.

V - 5378g.

I - 781.

I - 782.

West

,

B.

, , , , , pp. 7-29 to 7-32.

, , , , p. 46.

Sutherland

,

R. Q.

and

Wilson

,

R. L.

, , , , , p. 409.

I - 749.

I - 752.

I - 781. “On the stock I put the initials ‘M. S.,’ I think.”

I - 757.

During the testimony of James Bostock, a machinist who was a witness to the South Braintree affray, Prosecutor Williams questioned his knowledge of Berardelli's habits with respect to the carrying of a revolver. Defense Attorney McAnarney properly objected to the relevance of this line of interrogation (I - 196). After an unreported side bar conference with Judge Thayer, Williams was allowed to proceed, subject to the assurances he had made to the judge of its materiality. Francis Russell, apparently privy to facts not appearing on record, has maintained that at this side bar conference, “Assistant District Attorney Williams revealed for the first time the Commonwealth's contention that the revolver found on Vanzetti had been taken from Berardelli's body by the man who shot him” (Russell, Note 2, p. 160, note 2). Whether Russell was speculating or not, Katzmann's summation crystallized the prosecution's theory that Vanzetti lifted Berardelli's revolver and then was caught with it on his person in Brockton on 5 May 1920 (II - 2183–2184). See Russell, Note 2, p. 160, note 2. Judge Thayer, in his instruction to the jury (II - 2255), also adverted to the prosecution's attempt to link the .38-caliber Harrington & Richardson seized from Vanzetti to Berardelli. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter thought so little of the merits of this feature of the prosecution's case against Vanzetti that he derided it as “too insignificant for detailed attention,” and buried it in a brief footnote reference in his book. Frankfurter, Note 2, p. 32, note 2.

I - 807.

V - 5235.

V - 5010–5011.

Letter dated 20 April 1983 signed by R. E. Chatigny,

I - 756.

I - 759. In , 574 S.W.2d. 440 (Mo. App. 1978) a shotgun loaded with #6 shot, found in the accused's possession, was admitted into evidence since the deceased was demonstrated to have been killed with #6 shot, even though the gun from which that shot was fired could not be identified. See also United States v. Barber, 495 F.2d 327 (9th Cir. 1974) (involving coins stolen in a bank robbery).

I - 760.

III - 2757–2758.

Supp. Vol. - 354–355.

Supp. Vol. 141.

Supp. Vol. 356.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, p. 50.

Ehrmann, Note 2, pp. 108–113.

Ehrmann, Note 2, p. 110.

II - 1714–1715.

Ehrmann, Note 2, pp. 53, 299.

I - 328.

Sinclair

,

U.

, “,” , Vol. , No. , Summer, pp. 13, - (p. 23).

, 397 U.S. 358 ().

Gunther and Gunther, Note 2, p. 244.

I - 690–692 Bullet I (Exhibit 20) - Winchester; Bullet II (Exhibit 19) - U.M.C.; Bullet IIII (Exhibit 21) - Winchester; Bullet 5 (Exhibit 25) - Peters; Bullet X (Exhibit 24) - U.M.C.

II - 1415.

Russell

,

F.

, “,” , , pp. -, 108–111 (p. 5).

Hatcher, Jury, and Weller, Note 20, pp. 201–202.

Hatcher, Jury, and Weller, Note 20, p. 200.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, p. 83. The Lowell Committee too saw this feature as of primary importance to Sacco's case. V-5378w.

I - 920. The Lowell Committee incorrectly construed Van Amburgh's “inclined to believe” that Bullet III was fired from the Sacco Colt to mean that “it did so.” V-5378r.

I - 896.

II - 1408, 1430.

IV - 3633.107. IV - 3641–3643.

V - 5054.

II - 2254.

V - 5378w.

, 640 P.2d 971, 976 (Okl. Cr. 1982); Powell v. Comm., 554 S.W.2d 386 (Ky. 1977); Ethridge v. State, 418 So.2d 798 (Miss. 1982); State v. Casarez, 656 P.2d. 1005, 1007 (Utah 1982); State v. Williams, 659 S.W.2d 309, 310 (Mo. App. 1983); State v. Boyd, 331 N.W.2d. 480 (Minn. 1983).

446 N.E.2d. 805 (Mass. 1984).

, 17 May 1975, p. 18.

See

Noguchi

,

T. T.

,

Holloway

,

J. E.

, and

Nakamura

,

G. R.

, “,”  0075-8590, pp. -.

484 N.Y.S.2d. 577 (App. Div.2d. 1984).

, 475 A.2d. 999, 1014 (R.I. 1984).

Stone

,

I. C.

and

Wilimovsky

,

A.

, “,” , Vol. , No. , , p. 201.

481 A.2d. 178 (R.I. 1984).

, 455 So.2d. 278 (Ala. Cr. App. 1984).

II - 1419.

IV - 3627.

I - 916.

I - 119–120.

, p. 18.

Ernst

,

M. L.

, “,” , Vol. , , pp. -.

In commenting on the expert testimony in the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnapping-murder of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., Professor Seidman has asserted that “(t)he testimony of the handwriting and wood experts, for example, can be disposed of only by assuming the general unreliability of forensic scientists. This skepticism may be well founded.”

Seidman

,

L. M.

, “,” , Vol. , pp. -, at p. 8.

Jackson, Note 2, pp. 88–90.

Report, p. 27.

I - 189.

I - 189, 191.

I - 195.

I - 882.

I - 760–761.

Ehrmann, Note 2, p. 261.

Jackson, Note 2, pp. 107–108.

Jackson, Note 2, p. 106.

Jackson, Note 2, p. 54.

I - 885.

Houts

,

M.

, , , , , p. 300.

Fontaine

,

R.

, “,” , Vol. , , pp. 542, 545; Goddard, C. H., “Scientific Identification of Firearms and Bullets,” Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, Vol. 17, No. 2, Aug. 1926, pp. 254–263, 260.

Sharma

,

G. P.

, “,” , Vol. , , pp. -.

IV - 3621.

Sharma

,

B. R.

, “,” , Vol. , , p. 378.

Gunther and Gunther, Note 2, p. 230.

IV - 3675.

Felix mistakenly believed the “shell is marked for two reasons,” which he described as breechface and firing pin marks.

Felix

,

D.

, , , , , p. 123.

Joughin and Morgan, Note 2, p. 304.

Thorwald, J., Note 4, p. 433 passim.

Montgomery, Note 2, pp. 89–90. Montgomery gives the full text of Goddard's letter of 8 Aug. 1927 as it was published in the Boston Evening Transcript reporting on the conduct and results of his tests.

Goddard

,

C. H.

, “,” , , pp. -, 171–172, p. 21. But Goddard's article, and possibly his firearms identification work as well, is compromised by numerous factual errors. His article states twice that six shells were found at the crime scene when only four were even in issue at any time. Sacco, according to Goddard, had three bullets of the “obsolete: Winchester type on his person when arrested, but, in reality, six were discovered on him.” Finally, Goddard mentions that one of the five non-Winchester bullets displayed a right twist of the lands and grooves, when all five bullets revealed such a twist.

Hatcher, Jury, and Weller, Note 20, pp. 464–465 contain Goddard's photographs of the results of his cut and paste technique.

Russell, Note 98, p. 108.

, p. 40. Photographic Exhibits QQQ and RRR show two side-by-side comparisons of 1983 test cartridge Case 5 and the Fraher Winchester shell.