What had the Committee meant by the phrase “on the whole” which seemed in itself to imply reservations about “reasonable doubt”? Did the Committee still feel some residual doubt in regard to Vanzetti? That was just one of the enigmas of the report. As for Madeiros:
His ignorance of what happened is extraordinary, and much of it cannot be attributed to a desire to shield his associates, for it had no connection therewith.... Indeed, in his whole testimony there is only one fact that can be checked ... his statement that after the murder the car stopped to ask the way at the house of Mrs. Hewins. As this house was not far from ... where Madeiros subsequently lived, he might very well have heard the fact mentioned.
With Grant a judge and Lowell a historian, the committee’s ignorance of the law was at times astonishing:
The impression has gone abroad that Madeiros confessed committing the murder at South Braintree. Strangely enough, this is not really the case. He confesses to being present, but not to being guilty of murder.... If he were tried, his own confession, if wholly believed, would not be sufficient for a verdict of murder in the first degree.
According to the law, of course, an accessory to a murder is equally guilty.
As for the trial:
The Committee have seen no evidence sufficient to make them believe that the trial was unfair. On the contrary, they are of the opinion that the Judge endeavored, and endeavored successfully, to secure for the defendants a fair trial; that the District Attorney was not in any way guilty of unprofessional behavior, that he conducted the prosecution vigorously but not improperly; and that the jury, a capable, impartial and unprejudiced body, did, as they were instructed, “well and truly try and true deliverance make.”
However, in a measured way, the committee censured Judge Thayer:
From all that has come to us we are forced to conclude that the Judge was indiscreet in conversation with outsiders during the trial. He ought not to have talked about the case off the bench, and doing so was a grave break of official decorum. But we do not believe that he used some of the expressions attributed to him, and we think that there is exaggeration in what the persons to whom he spoke remember. Furthermore, we believe that such indiscretions in conversation did not affect his conduct at the trial or the opinions of the jury, who indeed, so stated to the Committee.
Judge Grant felt more troubled than his colleagues, as he indicated later in his autobiography: