by Brian Keaney

A short essay and trial scenario recounting the Sacco and Vanzetti case was read and performed at the Norfolk County Superior Court Tuesday night. The case, which took place in Dedham in in 1921, garnered worldwide attention and even riots when the two men were found guilty and ultimatly executed in 1927.

In April 1920 a paymaster and his security guard in South Braintree were robbed and murdered. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian immigrants and anarchists, were convicted of the crimes following a seven week trial. Tuesday's recounting of the trial took place in the same courtroom the actual trial did.

The essay was written by retired judge Maurice Richardson, who narrated the tale through the eyes of a retired court officer named James Ritchlow. Ritchlow told the audience that the courtroom looked nearly the same today as it did then, with the exception of the missing steel cage in which Sacco and Vanzetti sat.

Sacco's attorney, Frederixk Moore, played by John McGlone, was a showboating lawyer originally from Hollywood. Both before and during the trial he drummed up both international and domestic interest in the case, along with the balance in the defendants' defense fund.

Out of the first 500 potential jurors – all men, as women were not permitted to serve on juries until 1950 – only 7 were found to be acceptable to Moore and the other attorneys. Sheriff deputies were then fanned out across Norfolk County to round up another 175 potential jurors. From this lot five more five were found to be suitable and the jury was complete seven days after selection began.

The jurors were promptly sequestered in a makeshift bunkhouse in the basement of the Registry of Deeds across the street. They remained there for the remainder of the trial, except for the one day they were transported to a North Scituate for a day of fishing and relaxing on the beach.

During the course of the trial Sacco's wife and children stayed in the nearby home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Brandeis was serving in Washington at the time of the Dedham trial. Her husband and his accused accomplice were being housed down the street in the county jail on Village Ave.

After closing arguments, which spread over two days and saw both sides speak for hours, the jury was finally given the case. “Time stood still in Dedham” that evening while the jury was deliberating, according to Richardson.

When the foreman knocked on the door five hours later an “invisible telegraph” went out throughout Dedham Square and the hundreds of people waiting quickly filled the courtroom once again. The jury filed in and returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree for both men.

Judge Webster Thayer sentenced both to death by electrocution, but appeals went on for several years after that. Frank Sibley, a reporter for the Boston Globe at the time, said Thayer's "whole manner, attitude seemed to be that the jurors were there to convict these men." Thayer was later quoted as saying, "Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day? I guess that will hold them for a while."

The case saw a surge of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, and both then and now many do not believe the men received a fair trial. Governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a Commission to look into the matter as he considered commuting their sentences. He was expected to do so, according to Richardson, until a the home a Milton juror was blown up a few days before the scheduled execution.

On August 23, 1927 the two men were executed at the Charleston State Prison. Demonstrations took place around the world and anarchists bombed American embassies. The homes of the executioner and Thayer were also bombed within a year of the execution.

Fifty years later Governor Michael Dukakis signed a proclamation declaring that “any stigma and disgrace should forever be removed from the names of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. We are not here to say whether these men are guilty or innocent. We are here to say that the High standards of justice, which we in Massachusetts take such pride in, failed Sacco and Vanzetti.”