sensory deprivation, which in its strictest sense, involves the isolation of an individual from everyday sights, sounds and actions. Nick Sacco had been exposed to a somewhat analogous situation for nearly thirty-six months. Although he had contact with people, he had been deprived of the three most important things in his life: wife and children, job, and his exercise and contact with nature. The daily visits of Rosina—in Dedham she had not visited as frequently—aggravated the patient instead of assuaging him, and were the direct cause of his most powerful delusions and hallucinations. It was as if every visit—however much her husband desired it—could only be unbearable to him. No one understood this better than the bachelor Vanzetti, who later wrote: “Has Nick a wife? Yes, and a good one; but, not being free, he most either thinks that she is consoling herself with somebody else, or that she is suffering the unspeakable agony of a loving woman compelled to mourn is living lover.”
Sacco was diagnosed as suffering from psychosis of a paranoid character. The court committed him on April 23 to the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Moore was greatly troubled by Sacco’s suicide attempts. As one way of saving his client he had agreed to Sacco’s examination by alienists and—even though he objected to the Bridgewater institution—signed the commitment papers. Sacco and his wife never forgave him for it, and the differences of opinion that had troubled the two men now began to harden into enmity.
Sacco spent five months at Bridgewater. His mood on entering seemed cooperative. He was not isolated but given a bed in a ward; within two days he began chatting with the other prisoners. Soon he was at work polishing floors and before long he had a chance to work mornings on the prison farm, where he tended a small vegetable garden. His appetite was good—in a month he gained twenty-six pounds. Throughout his stay he remained quiet, cautious, but agreeable. When a doctor asked him whether he was insane, he replied, “I am not one of that kind. My mind is clear. I am not crazy.” Although Sacco was at times hopeful about his chances for a new trial, Dr. Mountford, the Bridgewater physician, noted that he occasionally presented a worried look “which he explains by saying that it is all caused by the long procedure of the court which keeps his case from being settled one way or the other.” Thought of suicide still ran through his mind. On July 9 Dr. Mountford noted that Sacco
says he has not given the suicide idea up, and regrets that he did not die in his former attempt. In explaining this statement, says he does not wish to commit suicide now, but says he wants to get justice, and insists if ever confronted by similar conditions of those before he came here, he would not hesitate to commit suicide.
After saying this, Sacco looked out the window into the prison yard, and with great interest watched some prisoners playing baseball.
On September 29 he was discharged from Bridgewater with the diagnosis “not insane” and returned to Dedham in time for the arguments on the five supplementary motions, postponed because of his condition.
Some time during the previous summer Elias Field, a lawyer of the modest firm of Brown, Field and McCarthy, and the defending counsel in a Middlesex County murder case, learned that the famous Dr. Hamilton was in Boston. Hamilton seemed to him just the man to examine some bullets, then in the custody of the State Police, that were to be introduced as evidence. Hamilton was willing. On August 7 he and Field went to Captain Proctor’s office in the State House to find out about the bullets. Proctor told them that they happened to be at his house in Swampscott, twelve miles away. However, if Field wanted to drive him there, they could look at them. Field agreed. While he drove, Hamilton and Proctor began to discuss the Sacco-Vanzetti case.
“I suppose you know” Hamilton said, “that I have been retained by the defense to study some of the exhibits in connection with the pending motion for a new trial.”