Boston was one of the worst centers of lawlessness. One of the leading citizens of Boston, Mr. John F. Moors, himself a banker, has called attention to the fact that “the hysteria against the Reds was so great at the time when these men were convicted that even the most substantial bankers in this city were carried away to the extent of paying for full page advertisements about the Red peril.”
Now, Sacco and Vanzetti were notorious Reds. They were associates of leading radicals. They had for some time been on the list of suspects of the Department of Justice, and were especially obnoxious because they had evaded the draft. Not only were they living in an overwhelming atmosphere of apprehension, but also the terrorizing methods of the Government had a very real meaning to them. For, as mentioned above, two of their friends had been deported, and one, Salsedo had, they had learned the day before, after having been detained incommunicado by the Department of Justice for a long period of time, been thrown or jumped from a window of a building on Park Row, New York. Sacco and Vanzetti had been urged by their friends to dispose of their radical literature and thus eliminate the most damaging evidence in the deportation proceedings they feared. It was to carry out this advice that Vanzetti and his friends were trying to get Boda’s car from Johnson’s garage on May 5th. And we cannot avoid concluding that Sacco and Vanzetti’s actions after their arrest were dictated, not by fear of arrest for murder, but by fear of deportation, or worse, for radicalism.
We have seen the Commonwealth abandon its first line of attack. It now abandons its second, and finally we shall see how, depending entirely upon its third line, it succeeds, through the cooperation of Judge, District Attorney, and firearms expert, in bamboozling the jury, already eager to convict these Reds, into believing that the “mortal bullet” actually passed through Sacco’s pistol.
III.
Identification through the “mortal bullet.”
Vital to the identification of Sacco and Vanzetti as the murderers was the identification of one of the fatal bullets as a bullet coming from Sacco’s pistol. The evidence excluded the possibility that five other bullets found in the dead bodies were fired either by Sacco or Vanzetti.
When Judge Thayer placed the case in the jury’s hands for judgment, he charged them that the Commonwealth had introduced the testimony of two experts, Proctor and Van Amburgh, to the effect that the so-called fatal bullet went through Sacco’s pistol.[1] Such was neither the belief nor the testimony of Proctor, who refused to accede to this view. In the course of the preparation of the case, District Attorney Katzmann knew that such was not intended to be his testimony. These startling statements call for detailed proof.
Proctor, at the time of his testimony, was head of the State Police, and had been in the Department of Public Safety for twenty-three years. On the witness stand he was qualified at length as an expert, who had for twenty years been making examination of and experiments with bullets and revolvers, and had testified in over a hundred capital cases. His testimony was thus offered by the State as entitled to the greatest weight. If the jury could be convinced that the bullet found in Berardelli’s body came out of Sacco’s pistol, the State’s case was invincible. On this crucial[1] issue, Captain Proctor testified as follows at the trial:
Q. “Have you an opinion as to whether bullet number 3 (exhibit 18) was fired from the Colt automatic which is in evidence (Sacco’s pistol)?” A. “I have.” Q. “What is your opinion?” A. “My opinion is that it is consistent with[1] being fired from that pistol.”
At the trial, in his closing argument, the District Attorney told the jury: “You might disregard all the identification testimony and base your verdict on the testimony of these experts.”[1]
In the Court’s charge to the jury, Judge Thayer interpreted the evidence to mean that: “It was his (Sacco’s) pistol that fired the bullet that caused the death of Berardelli. To this effect, the Commonwealth introduced the testimony of two witnesses, Messrs. Proctor and Van Amburgh.”[1]