A Disappointing Document
The committee's report, filed with the governor just two days after final arguments were made on July 25, is a disappointing document. It is a conglomeration of unsupported conclusions, and each conclusion seems to be the same: prosecution witnesses were believed, defense witnesses were not. It finds the trial to be just and fair, since although the judge was "indiscreet in conversation with outsiders," he had not communicated his predisposition to the jury; this is based on the jurors' statements that the judge did not prejudice their outlook.
The evidence concerning the foreman's bias is met with a statement that his friend "must have misunderstood" his remark that the "guineas" "ought to hang anyway." The statement of the policemen to the effect that the foreman was prejudiced against Italians was ignored.
As for Captain Proctor, who swore that he and the district attorney had framed a question to deceive the jury, the committee says the jury "must have understood the plain English words." This is discernibly false. Not only did the judge instruct the jury that Proctor's testimony meant that "the fatal Winchester bullet . . . was fired through the barrel of the Colt Automatic pistol found upon the defendant Sacco at the time of his arrest." The newspapers of the day also failed to understand "the plain English words." "EXPERTS PICK MURDER PISTOL; Declare Bullet from Sacco's Gun Caused Death of Berardelli," read the headlines of the Boston Herald.
The Committee threw out Madeiros's confession, finding that his knowledge of the facts of the crime were insufficient to provide any proof that he was present at the murder.
Finally, the report concludes that the weight of the eyewitness testimony, the evidence of the cap, the "consciousness of guilt" evidence, and the ballistics testimony proved that Sacco was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Then it weights the evidence and comes to the frustrating conclusion that "On the whole, we are of opinion that Vanzetti was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." "On the whole" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" simply do not seem compatible.
The report went to Governor Fuller, who agreed with its findings. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927, while men continued to debate their guilt or innocence. But whether or not Sacco and Vanzetti actually murdered Parmenter and Berardelli, there can be little question that the Lowell Committee failed in its objective--an honest overall evaluation of the case.
It would be foolish to suggest that President Lowell's decision in the case was reached solely because of a prejudice against Italians or against radicals. Lowell had stood out against his own class before and would do so again. When alumni were calling for the resignation of Felix Frankfurter, who aided the defense during the Sacco case, Lowell would have nothing of it. He supported the League of Nations when that was an unpopular cause and refused to fire Harold Laski when alumni pressure for the socialist's dismissal was intense.
Yet is would be equally foolish to say that the decision of the Lowell Committee was in every way a logical one. Its evaluation of the evidence of Proctor, and of the charges against Ripley, the foreman, and in several other cases show a constantly repeating pattern: an intuitive decision that the prosecution was correct and the defense in error.
The committee seems to have first reached the judgment that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty and then to have interpreted the evidence so that it would best support this conclusion. But there can be no question that Lowell and the other members of the committee felt their decision to be a correct one. This is the real tragedy of Sacco-Vanzetti: that the best of people with the best intentions managed to do the worst of deeds--kill two men who did not deserve to die