Sitting beside her in the train, he would unburden himself of his incubus case while she kept inviolably silent. As the city slums receded, replaced beyond Forest Hills by the trim rectangles of the suburbs and the autumn outline of Great Blue Hill, he talked on and on, boasting that he “could not be intimidated by anybody or anything.” The defense “would find that they could not hoodwink him.” He represented the integrity of the courts of Massachusetts, he told her, and he was going to maintain that integrity.
One morning Judge Thayer gave Mrs. Bernkopf his autographed picture. Occasionally she would get a knowing look from the other reporters as they passed down the aisle. The judge said he had long been put out by the kind of people who were supporting the defense, but what really stirred him so that even the recollection stepped up his pulse was “that long-haired anarchist lawyer from California.” The old man would lean forward confidentially, assuring the young woman that if Moore thought he could outwit the courts of Massachusetts he had another think coming. Maybe Moore could play that game successfully in California, but those tricks and threats just would not work in Dedham. He, Judge Thayer, was not going to be imposed on!
As the train pulled into the Dedham Station, Thayer with avuncular gallantry would guide Mrs. Bernkopf’s elbow down the aisle, tip his hat to her on the platform, and say that he hoped he would have the pleasure of her company again. Three years later she recorded the substance of his conversations in an affidavit.
The hearings seemed to fall into the pattern of being argued for a day and postponed for a week. Not until November 8 were they concluded. When Thompson argued the Hamilton-Proctor motion and mentioned the police captain, sparks flew between him and District Attorney Harold Williams.[14] The district attorney insinuated that the reason Proctor had turned on the Commonwealth was that Katzmann had refused to approve his claim of five hundred dollars for his expert testimony, although it had later been approved by the court and paid.
“I don’t want to make this a personal matter,” Thompson reminded Williams after the gust of angry words had died down. “I don’t want to go off on an attack upon any person. But here are these men, assured by the State of fair treatment here if nowhere else—and then a prearranged question and answer made to appear the exact opposite of what the witness really thought.”
“Are you sure there was a prearranged question?” Thayer interrupted.
“They knew and don’t deny it that Captain Proctor didn’t believe that bullet went through that gun,” Thompson replied. In a passionate summing up he asked Thayer if the court could really say that Sacco and Vanzetti had had a fair trial in the face of the failure of the government attorneys to bring out Proctor’s real opinion.
Toward the close of the hearing Thompson reserved the right to be heard in a request to fire one hundred cartridges through Sacco’s pistol with a view of making further ballistic comparisons. At this point there began one of the equivocal episodes in the post-trial proceedings. Dr. Hamilton appeared with two new 32-caliber Colt automatics and offered to compare them with Sacco’s pistol. Before Judge Thayer and the lawyers for both sides he disassembled all three pistols and placed the parts in three piles on a table. Then, picking up various parts one by one, he explained their function and pointed out their interchangeability. After reassembling the pistols, he slipped his two in his pocket and handed Sacco’s to the assistant clerk. Hill and Thompson were already leaving the courtroom when Hamilton started after them. “Just a minute, gentlemen!” Thayer called out as they reached the door.
Years afterward, not long before his death, Thayer related the sequel to Captain Van Amburgh: “They stopped, turned and looked at me. I said, ‘Come here, Mr. Hamilton.’ Hamilton advanced towards me. I said: ‘Hand me your pistols.’ He did so and I said: ‘They shall be impounded.’ I don’t know why I impounded those pistols. It merely seemed like the proper and thorough thing to do. I have thanked God many times since that I did so. And then the astounding discovery made later that the original barrel in the Sacco pistol was missing and an entirely different barrel substituted for it!”