14. The case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti roll off the American tongue as if they were one name. Their murder trial and subsequent executions were an international sensation in the 1920s. Both anarchists were convicted of two murders during an armed robbery which occurred in 1920. After being sentenced to death in 1921, appeals and public outcry over the case lasted until 1927, when both were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts. Throughout the decade they inspired bomb threats, riots, peaceful demonstrations, literary debates, and even divided the opinions of the Supreme Court. One soon-to-be Associate Justice wrote an article calling for their release in Atlantic Monthly Magazine.
The case was clouded at the time and remains clouded nearly a century later, with opinions for or against their guilt argued forcefully by legal scholars, fans of the case, and mystery buffs. In the mid-1970s Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis ordered an independent judicial review of the entire case, and subsequent to its completion proclaimed that Sacco and Vanzetti had been subjected to unfair trials and convictions. He announced that “disgrace should be forever removed from their names”. Dukakis did not pardon either of them, however, nor have they been officially exonerated for the crimes for which they were convicted. The case of Sacco and Vanzetti is still one of contention among fans of historic crime drama.