SHALL MASSACHUSETTS COMMIT JUDICIAL MURDER?
Evans, Elizabeth Glendower
Shall Massachusetts Commit Judicial Murder? By ELIZABETH GLENDOWER EVANS THE Supreme Court of Massachusetts for the second time has spoken. It has said once more that Judge Webster Thayer was...
...Sacco's remarks were brief and were much hampered by being forced to be spoken in a foreign language...
...His closing words were: "I forgot one thing which my comrade remember me...
...It is an appalling thing to see a great State, in the full exercise ot its lacumes, steer deliberately toward an act of profound and irrevocable injustice...
...Yes, as far as our lives and freedom are concerned, all has been vain...
...Be it remembered that July 10...
...I am now confined in a cell of Cherry Hill wing, antichamber of the death house, wai'ing for my doom...
...This is what I say: I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth— I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things I am not guilty of...
...Similarly letters and telegranjj) are being sent to the Governo»from tb# world over, both from individuals and from bodies, urging that suitable meaa» sures be taken to save the State of Massachusetts from closing its eyes in the act of committing a judicial munlee...
...Judge Thayer is the only tribunal which has had a look in at this and at a whole mass of evidence discovered since the original trial, held in June and July of 1921...
...Even idadeiros' confession to having taken part in the South Braintree crime and that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti participated therein,—even the evidence of former associates that Madeiros' participation in the crime was well known by his companions and that he had often declared that sooner than let men wrongly accused go to the chair, he himself would make confession,—even this evidence is not to be submitted to a jury...
...It helped us and it will safe other—it will never have been dne in vain...
...but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do again what I have done already...
...Sacco and Vanzetti, thus adjudged guilty of two murders committed more than seven years ago, were sentenced on April 9th to death in the electric chair upon some day during the week beginning July 10, 1927...
...Ernest Hocking, Professor of Philosophy in Harvard College, gave a striking address from the platform of the Community Church, Symphony Hall, explaining why the opinion of the Supreme Court could not allay doubts as to the merits of the case...
...It has said once more that Judge Webster Thayer was legally correct in his rulings in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and that the Supreme Court is unable to consider independently the evidence which he has passed on...
...Vanzetti spoke for forty-two minutes...
...In view of the belief of multitudes of persons that the sentence cries out against the evidence on which it should rest, petitions are in circulation praying the Governor to appoint a commission...
...There are some signs that the Governor will consider these pleas...
...the sooner the agitation will stop.' And 1 have no illusions...
...1927, is the date set for the execution...
...On the day on which Vanzetti learned that the Supreme Court had denied him a new trial, he wrote to a friend: "Your good letter has reached me just now...
...But yours and our comrades and friends' solidarity and generority has written a wonderful paragraph in history...
...If the courts fail in this will to justice, the conscience of men must make itself heard...
...On April 10, Wm...
...As Wilbur has publicly said few month ago, "The sooner Sacco and Vanzetti be brought to the ultimate justice...
...Each of the men gpoke in court before receiving sentence, ~-spoke in simple, burning words, declaring their innocence of the crime of which they stood accused...
...public...
...I have suffered because I am an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian...
...empowered to examine all the facts in the case and to make a report to the...
...I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself...
...Be patient and of brave heart, and have all my good wishes and affection...
...His closing words were: "Weli, I have already say that I am not guilty of these two crimes, that I never commit a crime in my life,—I have never steal and I have never kill and I have never spilt blood, and I have fought against the crime, and I have fought and I have sacrificed myself even to eliminate the crimes that the law and the church legitimate and sanctify...
...It is not imperative," said the opinion, "that a new trial be granted, even though the evidence is newly discovered, and, if presented to a jury, would justify a different verdict...
...We have the incredible, the essentially disgraceful situation that men may be sent to their death in Massachusetts because the courts refuse to hear relevant evidence...
...I am suffering because I am a radical, and indeed I am a radical...
...But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty .of...
...As I said" before, Judge Thayer know all my Hfe, and he knew that I am never been guilty, never—not yesterday nor today nor forever...
...The real enemies of the state are those who defend the indefensible, who refuse to acknowledge the error obvious to all thoughtful men, and who reject that primary concern for justice without which no law is worthy of respect and no state worthy of obedience...
...He himself, he stated, remained persuaded that Sacco and Vanzetti were as innocent of the crime for which they had been sentenced to death, as he himself was...
...The excluded evidence in this case is such, I verily believe, as would convince four men out of five, if they could hear it with unbiased minds, that Sacco and Vanzetti had nothing to do with the Braintree murder...
Vol. 19 • May 1927 • No. 5
