The defense, in its third motion for a new trial, produced affidavits to show that Carlos E. Goodridge, one of the prosecution’s important witnesses, had a criminal record in several States. At the trial Goodridge said he rushed out of a poolroom on hearing the shots, observed the bandit-car whizzing by and saw Sacco in the front seat, and that Sacco tried to shoot him.
It so happened that some months before the trial one of the defense counsel had been instrumental in prosecuting Goodridge on a charge of having stolen a victrola. The news of the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti on May 5, 1920, was followed by the visit to the jail of many who said they had seen the bandits. Goodridge, the defense asserted, did not go. However, he was taken to court to plead guilty on the same day that Sacco and Vanzetti were taken to court. Subsequently he told the prosecution that he recognized the two Italians and was let out on probation.
The affidavits of Goodridge’s life presented by the defense cover 160 pages. His real name was stated to be Erastus Corning Whitney. He is said to have been convicted in New York of grand larceny before reaching his twentyfirst year. After serving a three-year sentence he received his freedom and a year later was again arrested for stealing a relative’s jewelry. His second conviction was for a term of three years. Upon his release he began stealing horses. He was indicted for stealing a horse and buggy. The affidavits signed by District Attorneys, sheriffs, ministers and others declared that Goodridge’s reputation for veracity was bad, that he was a petty thief, a swindler of women, and a confidence man. Motion denied.
The fourth motion for a new trial was concerned with the testimony of Lola R. Andrews. According to the defense’s affidavits Mrs. Andrews was interviewed by them five months before the trial. She said she did not see Sacco, and her description of the man she saw, according to the defense, was not that of Sacco. “He is not the man,” she said upon seeing photographs of Sacco. The night before she was called by the Commonwealth she told defense counsel that she did not know why she was being called as she could not identify anybody.
Next day she made a positive identification of Sacco. Cross-examined on the stenographic notes of her conversation with defense counsel she said the stenographer had not transcribed his notes honestly. She branded as a lie the statement made by the lawyer for the defense. During her cross-examination she fainted three times and was assisted from the room.
In an affidavit sworn to by Mrs. Andrews nine months after the trial she declared that her original statement before trial was true, and that her trial testimony was untrue and had been given under the coercion and intimidation of the District Attorney’s office, which threatened to reveal her private life.
(Six months later Mrs. Andrews, in a statement to the District Attorney’s office, said that her first statement to the defense lawyer was false, her trial testimony true, her subsequent affidavit to the defense counsel untrue and her last statement true). Motion denied.
The fifth motion for a new trial was concerned with the exceedingly important gun-and-bullet testimony. The Commonwealth held that the bullet that killed Berardelli was fired from Sacco’s pistol. Two gun experts for the defense said it was not.
The Commonwealth’s experts were Captain Charles A. Van Amburgh of the Remington Arms Works and Captain William H. Proctor, for thirty years head of the Massachusetts State Police.
According to the new evidence placed before the court, Captain Proctor states that he had the death bullet and the Sacco pistol in his possession for more than a year before the trial and that with Mr. Van Amburgh he conducted certain tests with Sacco’s pistol. In his affidavit, made on Oct. 22, 1923, more than two and a half years after the trial, Captain Proctor stated that at the trial and at the moment of making the affidavit he was entirely unconvinced that the mortal bullet had passed through Sacco’s pistol. He said: