Sacco and Vanzetti Books

When I was a young teenager, I first ran across the names Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in a footnote to "Two Sonnets in Memory" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. At that age, the story of an injustice is always interesting and I was introduced to the myth of Sacco and Vanzetti. I may be careless to use the word "myth" since it is still such a loaded subject. But by using that term I do not mean any statement about their guilt or innocence-- that truth can never be fully established either way. I mean only that for many many years Sacco and Vanzetti were nothing to me except two soulful and handsome young men who were apparently executed for nothing except their political views-- about which I had no notion at all. My notion of anarchism was colored by a vague notion of Dada art and Futurism. My understanding of the political history of Italian-American anarchism in the US was entirely non-existent. The sacrificial lambs may well be one valid way of looking at the case, but it isn't the entire picture and also does not do justice to the context of the time.

I was interested in finding a book that covered what I did not already know. I knew quite about about the protests and the affect on literature and art. I had virtually no background as to what school of thought Sacco & Vanzetti belonged and I wanted to understand more about what it meant that they were anarchists-- in what context & to what ends.

The Avrich book succeeds admirably in providing the information that I had hoped to find. From their childhoods in Italy to the history of Italian anarchism in the US, Avrich paints the context around Sacco and Vanzetti and how they finally came to the place where they were when executed. It is not a lengthy book, but is dense and well-documented. It draws heavily from the Italian language resources that appear to have been ignored by many others who have written about the case.

Avrich is a dry writer-- unlikely to ever find himself a cross-over history best seller because of his sparkling prose. But the fact that the dryness bothered me surely says more about me as a lazy and erratic reader of history than it does about Avrich as a historian.

If you are looking for a personal biography of Sacco & Vanzetti, there are surely more charming narrative sources. As it is a fairly narrow political biography, I am also not sure that I would recommend it if you also are not familiar with the broad strokes of the case. There are also many other books which use the Sacco & Vanzetti case to examine US law and political culture at the time of the executions. The Avrich book is not the place to go in order to look at the case's impact on the United States.

However, if you are already familiar with the case and would like to know more, Avrich does present a perspective that many others neglect. It would also be a very interesting book if you were interested in the history of anarchism in the US. Recommended.

Most people know nothing of why we have such prohibitive laws against the first ammendment exist now. But long before 9/11 terrorism struck the USA, another terrorist act led to many restrictions on speech and association, similar to and in some cases more restrictive than Bush's laws. This book covers in detail what is known about the surroundings of the largest previous terrorist act in the United States, also in NYC. It is highly entertaining from start to finish. You will get to know each of the terrorists and the controversial evidence for and against them. But this isn't extreme islamic interpretation terrorism, this is anarchists from europe.

Paul Avrich has made a career out of anarchist history -- anarchistory, I suppose you'd call it. He's an excellent writer and this book is a welcome addition to his series. The title is a little misleading, as Sacco and Vanzetti, who were executed in the late 20's in one of the most controversial criminal cases of this century, aren't really dealt with too much.

What is dealt with are the Galleanists, the followers of Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani, who really framed American anti-radical policy (unintentionally) by way of a series of bombings that occurred in 1919 and 1920. These bombings offered the government the pretext for the unlawful series of police actions called the "Red Scare". These events are important even today because they framed American policy toward domestic leftist radicalism, much of which remains in force today.

The book follows the lives (and deaths) of many Italian anarchists, including Galleani himself, and is a fascinating exploration of their lives and their anarchist subculture at a time when anarchism was on the wane everywhere except Spain.

To the modern anarchist, the book offers as much of a sense of what anarchism shouldn't be as what it used to be. The Galleanist use of bombs did anarchism a considerable disservice as it gave the press something sensational to latch onto -- even today, some 70 years later, people still link anarchism with bombs. This is a direct offshoot of the Galleanists' activities, as explored in this book.

Avrich has a very readable writing style, and the book is jam-packed with historical references and interesting stories. Like all of his anarchist books, this one is worth your time.

Avrich's book is extraordinary as an account of the varied principle protagonists in the Italian Anarchist circles of 80 years ago, though it provides only a historical account of the characters without a perspective of history's judgment. The only reason I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 is that Sacco and Vanzetti are almost minor characters, popping up now and then amongst Galleani, Malatesta, Buda, Salsedo, et al, though their story and their fate is symbolic of the entire movement: All were relatively ordinary people who despised governments, and in turn were wiped off the face of America by ours. Avrich gives rich detail into the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti as well as all of the other mad bombers running around New York and Boston. The story of "Ella", the dynamite courier, with a side dish of Emma Goldman sharing her prison cell for a while, is superb. If you're an Anarchist fan, or maybe even a real Anarchist, Avrich is your man for history of the movement.
As a side note, read this book on an airplane some time and see how many people sitting next to you ask you what it's about. As significant as S&V were in American 20th Century history, their names are lost now to anyone but an Anarchist or the occasional college student doing required reading.

The Great Trials of the Twenties: The Watershed Decade in America's Courtrooms, by Robert Grant and Joseph Katz, guides the reader through the 1920s via such scandalous court-room trials as that of Al Capone, the Ku Klux Klan's David C. Stephenson, the Chicago "Black Sox", Loeb-Leopold, and more. The authors spent a great deal of time each chapter delving into the background information (what was going on in the country prior to the trial). They "set up" the scandal at length before the reader learns about it. I think this is beneficial if the reader is looking to understand more about the 1920s, but I think it is also a little unnecessary at times. I would like it if just as many pages covered the trials themselves, so I didn't feel like I had just "scratched the surface". Some excerpts of testimony and proceedings are included, which are effective, but I also think more are needed to help the reader grasp every angle of the scandal, the accused, the actual proceedings, etc.
What I really like about this book is how it sums up each account in the end, with either what it meant for the United States and its people in the 1920s or what happened to the defendant later on. When reading, it's obvious that Grant and Katz "know their stuff" when it comes to history. The inclusion of a section of photographs adds a great deal and makes the information hit home better when a face is put to a name. The authors highlight the ten most interesting, controversial, and exciting trials of the 1920s; not one trivial or disappointing trial was included. In covering all of these, the book runs like ten mini-stories, which, in my opinion, also keeps the interest factor up more than if the book were devoted to one single trial.
Each trial is analyzed, but the authors offer up these accounts in an objective and non-biased way. On the whole, it makes for a good read on the decade that ushered America into the modern age. The book attempts to connect the after-math and influence of the trials to America today. It does a fine job of this, and is easy to understand even if one is not a history buff. If readers are looking for a book only on trial proceedings they might be a little disappointed, but if they're looking for insight into the 1920s, The Great Trials of the Twenties: The Watershed Decade in America's Courtrooms is a nice choice.

An enjoyable book, nicely illustrated, which gives concise and interesting insights into some of the topics that exercised Americans in the 1920s and early 1930s: immigration, political radicalism, prohibition, crime and delinquent social behavior, the debate between creationism and science, and so on. I would have welcomed, in one or two chapters, slightly more detail from the trials themselves, and sometimes the overall historical context is a little thinly sketched. However, this is popular history, not some bone-dry academic thesis, and it works very well at that level.

This book manages to stay lively while giving both the social and historical context and details of the trials themselves. The narrative is informed but not ponderous, in fact, at times it almost conversational in tone. The trials selected encompass a broad array of issues from those times, ranging from sports scandles to organized crime to military heroes to xenophobia to science and creation. Each entry is long enough to give the reader a real good feel for the issues surrounding the case, but short enough to keep the pacing fast and enjoyable. I recommend it highly.

Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven `red scare' brought the federal government's vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the book under review. I note that it is as much a polemic on American nativism and Puritan skullduggery as it is a thorough study of the particulars of the case. After reading the book those whose sense of the 1920's in America was formed by F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age will have to think again.

A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the author's thesis about the original sin of the obtuse `righteousness' which drove the Puritans forebears in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that made it possible to railroad two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 to know that the case against them stunk to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force even a slightly liberal political type to know the "frame" was on. That standard is the minimum one would expect of an author on this subject so long after the events. This author passes that test. Her sympathies lie with the victim hood of the two anarchists and by extension all those who suffered physical and psychological damage from the abysmal social, political and cultural attitudes of the American ruling classes and their henchmen toward the great `unwashed'.

Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This author does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless she does not adequately address a question that is implicit in her description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?

The author spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the grandees and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. She does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair's freedom. She gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today's Sacco and Vanzetti's- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about it's place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. In any case-Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.

If you know nothing about the Sacco and Vanzetti case and you think that government can err, ever, this is the book to read as an introduction to this tragedy. There may be doubt about the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti, but there can be no doubt that they were not afforded justice as we know it today.

This book presents a clear, if liberally biased, basis for disputing the accusations brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

There can be no rest until the State of Massachusetts officially acknowledges its failure to protect the rights of these ignorant men.

Polenberg of Cornell University The introduction to The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti (Penguin Books 1997) by Professor Richard Polenberg is richly informative. The publication is timely and useful. Readers must ask whether these letters offer a clue to the moral character of convicted murderers Sacco and Vanzetti. John Nicholas Beffel, radical journalist who roomed with chief defense counsel Fred Moore during the Dedham trial, declared in “The New Republic,” December 29, 1920, that Vanzetti was a “philosophical anarchist.” In “The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti” (March 1927), Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter called Vanzetti “a dreamy fish peddler” (p. 101). Bruce Bliven, “managing editor of the liberal New Republic” (a phrase from American National Biography), wrote of Sacco and Vanzetti: “Their faith is philosophical anarchism.” See TNR: June 22, 1927, p. 121. When an unknown reviewer in the April 1929 issue of the anarchist journal “The Road to Freedom” argued that Upton Sinclair’s novel “Boston” was the work of an unfit historian, Sinclair replied angrily in the June issue: “It is a fact that Sacco was a ‘Militant Anarchist.’” Anarchist editor Hippolyte Havel agreed. In the August 1929 issue of “Lantern” Walter Lippmann wrote: “By every test that I know of for judging character, these are the letters [The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti] of innocent men.” Note: The brackets are by Lippmann Frederick Allen (Only Yesterday, 1931) said Vanzetti was “clearly a remarkable man--an intellectual of noble character, a philosophical anarchist of a type which it seemed impossible to associate with a pay-roll murder.” Alfred Jules Ayer, Professor of Logic at Oxford, reviewing Francis Russell’s 1962 book on Sacco and Vanzetti, wrote: “Both men were active anarchists of an idealistic kind.” Ayer said the letters of Vanzetti revealed “a man of great swetnesss and nobility of character.” See New Statesman: 5 July 1963. Sacco-Vanzetti scholars who met at the Boston Public Library on October 26 and 27, 1979, reminded readers that time is a great corrective. Professor Nunzio Pernicone, on the second conference day said: “ . . . these men [Sacco and Vanzetti] were not philosophical anarchists; they were genuine, militant revolutionaries.” See “Sacco-Vanzetti: Developments and Reconsiderations--1979,” the 1982 publication by Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston. In “Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background,” a 1991 publication by Princeton University Press, Professor Paul Avrich wrote: “Both [Sacco and Vanzetti] were ultra-militants, . . .” See p. 161 for Avrich’s citation to Sinclair’s letters that acknowledge the militancy of Sacco and Vanzetti. On page xxxix of his Introduction, Polenberg calls Edmund M. Morgan a historian. In fact, Morgan is called Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University on the back cover of the 1978 reprint of “The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti,” that 1948 book by Joughin and Morgan that Tom O’Connorr said had educated a generation of college students and professors. Polenberg’s assertion (p. xxxix) that Joughin and Morgan, . . .believed Sacco and Vanzetti innocent, . . .” must be severely qualified. Morgan said Ehrmann’s book, “The Untried Case: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang,” failed to convince him that the Morelli gang, not Sacco and Vanzetti, had committed the crime at South Braintree. Morgan also said that if Sacco and Vanzetti “were alive today [1934] and were to be tried again, . . . and if a verdict were returned, it could not be set aside as contrary to the weight of evidence, at least against Sacco.” See Harvard Law Review, January 1934. Morgan has more telling concessions in the book he and Joughin published in 1948. On pp. 55-56 he calls Vanzetti’s Plymouth trial fair, the verdict just. On p. 46 Morgan writes: “ . . . this cross-examination, taken alone,

tends strongly to show that a group of Italians had framed an alibi for Vanzetti and had coached this bright youngster [Beltrado Brini] to tell his story with details which would tie in with the incidents related by other witnesses.” On pages 48-49 Morgan says Vanzetti’s statements on the Plymouth trial are suspect. A handbook on the two disputed trials is “Kill Now, Talk Forever: Debating Sacco and Vanzetti,” an ebook by 1stBooks Library. Soft cover issue will be available before the end of summer....

This is the most important testament to a now largely forgotten tragedy of American politics. Sacco and Vanzetti were essentially convicted and executed for being unpatriotic foreigners, regardless of the crime they were accused of [for which no specific evidence was presented against them]. They waited for seven years in prison before their execution, during which time they wrote these letters. Their English, though it improved through the years, was never fully accomplished. But the results are extraordinary. The letters express ideas about life, society, faith, politics and human feelings, and the often clumsy and misused language actually makes the expression more lucid and more beautiful. The path of trial, appeal and final sentencing runs through clearly, and as the end approaches the letters are inexpressibly heartbreaking, as when Sacco asks his wife to tell his daughter "that I love her so much, and again, so much." This book has been in and out of print since the late 1920's, and is often unavailable in libraries because patrons steal it. It is a blessing that Penguin has brought it back.

Mr. De Camp seems to have an agenda of his own, notwithstanding his disclaimer that Mr. Montgomery turned him around. To dismiss Felix Frankfurter and John Dos Passo among dozens of other luminaries as "members of the chattering classes" is to display one's own bias. I have read widely in the case, have formed no conclusion as to their guilt or innocence, but am absolutely convinced that they did not receive a fair trial.

My wife picked up a paperback edition at a yard sale some time ago. When I began reading it, I believed, like most people, that Sacco and Vanzetti were railroaded by a bigoted, nativist judicial system. I have since obtained an autographed hard bound copy. Read this book and form your own opinions.

R. H. Montgomery was a lawyer practicing in Massachusetts at the time of the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti trial. He has a very different view of the events than that championed by the chattering classes, then and now. He makes a compelling case that Sacco was a member of the murder party and Vanzetti was at least an accessory after the fact. The most damning fact is the ballistic evidence not used at the trial because the comparator microscope had not yet been invented. (The appeals process in this case was one of the first uses of the this invention. The account of the ballistics evidence alone is worth the price of the book.) Sacco's lawyers never disputed his possession of the murder gun until after it was incontrovertibly proven that it was the murder weapon, during his *very* public appeals. At trial he admitted to owning the weapon and having it in his possession at the time of his arrest. (The evidence offered at trial by the defense's ballistic "expert" is amusing.)

This and other evidence, not offered at trial, only bolsters the case for the defendants' guilt. (Some evidence has become available after the trial, some was not admissible though strongly incriminating. One eye witness identified Sacco's cap to police but refused to testify at trial because he didn't want "a bomb up my [redacted]". A well founded fear, since Judge Thayer's home was bombed during the course of the trial and appeals.) Montgomery believes that the evidence offered at trial was more than sufficient for the jury to reach the conclusion it did. Sacco's and Vanzetti's defenders generally approach the case with their minds firmly closed to evidence, - distorting, selecting, fabricating to suit their needs. Evidence subjected to the scrutiny of judicial review does not serve their purpose. The preposterous claims thrown up by the defense were rejected by the jury, the judge, the appellate judges, the Governor and a blue ribbon committee, which was chaired by President Lowell of Harvard and included the president of MIT and other prominent citizens.

Montgomery also includes interviews with the surviving jurors made in the 1950's. Much is made of prejudice on the part of the jurors, but in the interviews they display none that is evident. Ordinary people are rarely artful enough to hide their opinions and prejudices.

For the record, the issue of anarchy and political affiliation was introduced by the defense, on the 15th day of the trial to explain lies told to police at the time of their arrest. [Lies told to police at the time of arrest were admissible as evidence of consciousness of guilt in those days.] They would rather be suspected of anarchy than murder.

The defense, at the end, was taken over by radicals who seemed more intent on making martyrs of their clients than offering a sound defense or hope of mitigation. If true, then to the extent that they were victims of politics, it was the politics of their purported supporters.

For more excellent historical background read also Francis Russell's "Sacco & Vanzetti: The Case Resolved" ASIN 0060155248.

***

UPDATE Interesting evidence blostering Mongomery's conclusions: (From the wikipedia article on Sacco and Vanzetti. Apparently Amazon does allow links, look it up.)

***

In 2005, a 1929 letter from Upton Sinclair to his attorney John Beardsley, Esq., was publicized (having been found in an auction warehouse ten years earlier) in which Sinclair revealed that he was told at the time he wrote his book Boston, that both men were guilty. Some years after the trial Sinclair met with Sacco and Vanzetti's attorney Fred Moore.

Sinclair revealed that after the executions, he had talked to Moore in a Denver hotel. "Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth, ...He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them. ...I faced the most difficult ethical problem of my life at that point, I had come to Boston with the announcement that I was going to write the truth about the case". Sinclair furthermore said that he was "completely naïve about the case, having accepted the defence propaganda completely." A trove of additional papers in Sinclair's archives at Indiana University show the ethical quandary that confronted him.

Written by the last living lawyer who was involved in the case this book is extrmely informitive. Having written my thesis for my Phd on this case I'm an expert. I highly recomend this book to anyone interested. Contact me if you have question regarding the case - I'll be happy to answer them.

Sacco and Vanzetti are without doubt the best known radicals featured in Ocean Press's "Rebel Lives" series. Anarchist Italian immigrants, their trial for murder during the frenzy of the first red scare became a cause celebre. Executed and then posthumously pardoned, their case has attracted renewed interest in recent years as anti-immigrant and anti-leftist prejudice and paranoia has again grown in the United States.

"Sacco and Vanzetti: Rebel Lives" is a collection of letters, articles, essays, and poems related to the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Editor John Davis opens the volume with a 13-page introduction, with the remaining 110 pages of documents arranged in four sections. The first, "The Shoemaker and the Fish-Peddler", includes 15 letters written by Sacco, Vanzetti, or both, to their supporters, friends, families, and executioners. Part two, "The Cause Celebre", includes eight contemporary articles and statements on their case (all defending Sacco and Vanzetti) by famous commentators including Eugene V. Debs, James P. Cannon, Anatole France, and John Dos Passos.

The third section, "Law versus Justice", presents more technical details of the case and the associated miscarriages of justice, through articles by Felix Frankfurter, H. G. Wells, and others. The final part deals with "The Legacy" of the case, and includes essays by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and Howard Zinn, along with the text of a speech by Juliet Ucelli commemorating the 75th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Each of the four sections opens with a poem about the Sacco and Vanzetti affair, which helps illustrate the profound impact the case has had on art, culture and memory.

Although I found this collection of documents interesting and enlightening, there were a few features of it that grated on me. In the letters by Sacco and Vanzetti, editor John Davis does not correct spelling or grammar, explaining that he wants to give the reader a sense of the frustration Sacco and Vanzetti must have felt trying to communicate in a foreign language. While that may be a laudable goal, I found that the resulting style got exceedingly tedious after a while. Even though Sacco and Vanzetti's innocence is common knowledge, I was annoyed that convincing evidence that they were in fact innocent was not presented until the third part of the book, well after a good deal of rhetoric that takes their innocence for granted.

Despite those criticisms, this volume is a good, slim introduction to primary sources relating to the Sacco and Vanzetti case. As with all the Rebel Lives books, this volume may also be of special interest to teachers looking for primary sources on the case and its victims.

These are the proceedings of the 1979 conference in Boston on the Sacco and Vanzetti case. A scholarly and informative look at the case from several angles with a wealth of detail. Not the first thing to read if one is unfamiliar with the case but an insightful perspective on the political, social, and legal climate of the case.

This the the first forensic book I got. Things have advanced since then. But it is good reading.

Doctor Lee brings you to and through the crime scenes so much better than a TV show.

Dr. Henry Lee is Chief Emeritus of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory and has extensive credentials. He investigated over 6,000 major crime cases. Dr. Jerry Labriola is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut Medical School and has practiced medicine for over 30 years. He is an experienced writer. "Sam Constant" is a fictional character who expresses the sentiments of the time. The `Prologue' explains the style of writing for this book, a way to journey to past events and comment on them using the latest scientific knowledge. The authors believe the same technical and judgmental errors continue to this day (p.xiv). External factors affect the legal process. This book has no index.

Section 1 deal with the Sacco-Vanzetti case, both were executed for a robbery-murder they most likely did not commit. There was a "highly unusual" trial for a lesser crime prior to a major crime (p.33). Vanzetti was delivering fish to his customers at the time of the crime (p.41). The head of the Massachusetts State Police believed they were innocent (p.43). Boston agents of the Department of Justice believed the crime was the work of professional gangsters (p.49). There were problems with eyewitness evidence (Chapter 5). There was tampering and suppression of evidence (p.64). Chapter 6 discusses the ballistic evidence, and the lack of a chain of custody. Both the shells and bullets could have been tampered with (pp.78-79). Vanzetti's revolver was not the guard's gun, he was framed (pp.90-91). The claim of "consciousness of guilt" seems to be a euphemism for prejudice (p.91). Sacco & Vanzetti lied about their activities to hide their anarchistic beliefs. Reporters thought the trial was not fairly and impartially conducted.

Section 2 covers five famous flawed cases. Edmond Locard noted the existence of trace evidence (p.103). The footprints outside the Lindbergh home were not measured, photographed, or cast in plaster (p.113). There were no fingerprints anywhere in the nursery (p.114)! A year later some of the ransom money was traced to Bruno Hauptmann (he entered the country illegally and had a criminal record in Germany). Hauptmann's writing was similar to the writing on the ransom note, but document examiners for the Secret Service and Army say Hauptmann did not write the ransom notes (p.118). [This is not an exact science.] Dr. Lee has 24 questions about this case (pp.126-129). One question should be about the pajamas worn by the baby; whoever had them was the kidnapper. Dr. Sam Sheppard was convicted due to commercial rivalry and prejudice. Coroner Gerber was out to get "the Sheppard clan", whose suburban hospital competed with the Cleveland Hospital. Dr. Paul L. Kirk's 1954 examination of the murder scene (after the trial!) documented the facts [Paul Holmes' 1961 book].

The assassination of JFK was never solved, Oswald was neither convicted or even indicted. David Wrone's "The Zapruder Film" explains why Oswald was in the doorway when the first shot was fired, and two films from across the street show nobody at that 6th floor window. [George O'Toole's 1975 book "The Assassination Tapes" provided the evidence to reopen the investigation. The "magic bullet" was not recovered at the crime scene, but was found (or planted) at Parkland Hospital (p.152). Was Vincent Foster a suicide or murder victim? There are arguments for each theory (pp. 175-177). The Starr Report said suicide (p.165). Was JonBenet Ramsey killed by an intruder or insider? The arguments for each theory are on pages 177-178. It is still unsolved.

Section 3 discusses the O. J. Simpson trial. OJ went from a sports hero to a reviled villain in just a few weeks. Has this ever happened before? There was racial bias over the trial and verdict, the facts weren't important! Nicole Brown Simpson's 911 transcript is on pages 189-195. No one was assaulted or arrested but it made people believe OJ was guilty. [Was this tamer than some Jerry Springer shows?] The grand jury was cancelled because they refused to indict OJ for murder; then they used a preliminary hearing to indict OJ. Chapter 1 does not mention that Nicole's boyfriend was about the same size and age as Ron Goldman (mistaken identity?). Chapter 2 has discrepancies in the time line from other books. Fuhrman found a still wet glove at 6am (p.207). There were problems in falsification of a legal document, and mishandling and/or fabrication of evidence (p.211). The Fourth Amendment bans illegally obtained evidence. This safeguards people against government intrusions (pp.212-213). There were conflicts in the testimony of Vannatter and Fuhrman (p.217). The coroner said the time of death was after 11pm (p.219). Two different types of stab wounds were found. Where was the bloody clothing, shoes, and murder weapon (p.219)? Why was a bloody glove placed in the backyard?

Chapter 4 deals with the trial. Robert Shapiro assembled a "dream team" of experts for the defense (p.226). The defense said evidence that exonerated OJ had been disregarded (p.228). Evidence collection did not always follow protocol (p.229). There were problems in the evidence that suggested planting (p.230). The use of videotapes from this highly publicized case provided evidence on the procedures (p.231). Dr. Lee has 16 questions about the facts in this case (pp.238-239). [The answer to #16 may be that the Bronco was parked there after the limo drive exited.] Chapter 5 discusses the opposing viewpoints of the major evidence in this trial. There were many examples where the prosecution claims did not match what the defense experts observed (p.243). The `Epilogue' explains how public opinion (manufactured by the media) affects a trial. There was suspicion of evidence suppression, tampering with evidence, perjury, and destruction or falsification of records (p.250). While science has advanced, fallible human beings can still make errors.

The `Appendix' discusses the past, present, and future of forensic science. It provides an outline for the general reader. [The paragraph on "voice-prints" may be outdated.] The `Bibliography' contains the names of books and articles on the seven cases in this book. [It does not list James Neff's "The Wrong Man", or "Killing Time" by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs.]

A good, quick read if you are interested in forensics. Be aware there is a very different approach to this book then any other forensic book I have ever read, and I have read alot of them. Dr. Lee gives you the dynamics of each case in point. The cases are Sacco-Vanzetti (from the 1920's), the Lindbergh baby, Sam Sheppard (the story that spawned the movie "the Fugitive" and the TV series by the same name), President Kennedy, Vincent Foster, Jon Bennet Ramsey, and OJ Simpson. Here is the twist. He travels back in time to sit through these trials, not to decide if the verdict is correct, but to see how immature our justice system was (or is... Simpson trial). He shows how prejudices, crime scenes and evidence flawed the cases. He talks about conspiracies, planting incriminating evidence, bumbling crimes scenes, and more. It gets better. Not only does he travel back in time, even back just 8 years (1994 OJ Simpson), but even to trials he was present at(Again, OJ Simpson where he was hired by the defence). Which is not to say is a bad thing.. BUT, he has a buddy that he runs into when he goes back in time. This is where I was ambivilent. I could not decide if it was clever or unnecessary. This 'buddy' was Sam Constant. And although Dr. Lee was always unseen, Sam Constant could be seen to people at will. Sam represented public opinion of the times. He showed prejudices and followed medias. Whatever was the publics main thought, such was his.
The largest sections of this book was of Sacco-Vanzetti and OJ Simpson. Very small sections on the others, which was the main reson for me to get this book in the first place. It certainly was not a poor read, and Dr. Lee, who just sticks to his science and does not judge, is a very intelligent man. His insights are very interesting, which thankfully were present and made the book worth the read for me. I suppose you will have to decide for yourself.

I really enjoy reading different experts' views on famous cases, past and present. Although that is the premise of this book, I did not enjoy reading it. The first sign of trouble is the editor's note explaining the "Sam Constant." If the literary device must be explained to the reader, then it shouldn't be used. The forensic case files in the book are very thin and Dr. Lee either breezes past each one (his excuse being that he didn't need his "time machine" - he had been there for the trial in real time) or just lists questions that have already been raised for years. He offers no solutions and sometimes, he doesn't even offer theories or suspicions. The chapter about OJ takes bizarre disbelief to a new level, and when Sam Constant is mixed into this situation, chaos reigns. The Sam Constant character is really the worst part of this book. The sections featuring him are incredibly absurd, and it is truly vexing that, while Dr. Lee barely scratches the surface of the crimes, he lists in painful detail everywhere he goes, everyone he meets, what is in his room, even what he ate at meals. If Dr. Lee wanted to write a novel, that's fine, he should write a novel. This book was supposed to be about true cases, but the hapless reader(victim) is duped. Few books are written so badly that they actually make you angry, but this is one of them.

Francis Russell spent a lifetime studying this case but was it a life well spent? Russell's 1962 book "Tragedy in Dedham" is a well-written and thorough, though now very dated, account but this one was dashed off late in his life. The book weaves together some new evidence, quashes all of Russell's own earlier doubts, and seems designed to put his own mind to rest. Its scholarship is shoddy, its selection of evidence highly suspect, and its conclusions far from solid. The writing isn't very good, either. As to the verdict, this book will give you all the evidence for the men's guilt. That's why it's so slim. If it contained all the evidence for their innocence, it would be 500 pages, like lawyer Herbert Ehrmann's "The Case That Will Not Die." The debate over Sacco and Vanzetti goes on and anyone who claims the case is resolved obviously has an agenda to serve. In Russell's case, it was the conservative agenda of "The National Review" for whom he had frequently written, whose backers simply could not admit that an American court could have brought and sustained this verdict that shocked the world. The truth of this case is elusive but one thing is indisputable -- the men did not get a fair trial and deserved a second one.

A convincing examination of the Sacco-Vanzetti case which argues that Sacco was guilty of murder and Vanzetti of being an accessory after the fact. Even defenders of the radicals will have to answer this evidence. Nevertheless, subtitling the book "The Case Resolved" goes too far. The story does have to be told as part of Russell's own search for the truth, but Russell (1910-1989) pushes his own intellectual martyrdom too far to the foreground, especially at the conclusion of Chapter 14. Nonetheless, this is a satisfying book, thoughtful, lucid, and written with an absolute minimum of academic posturing.

I have no idea about exactly what happened in South Braintree in 1920, and neither apparently does anyone else. People's interpretations of the evidence seems to divide along political lines.

However, Mr. Russell's man-crushes on Katzmann and other figures in the case are useless as evidence. "No one could imagine the prosecutor sending innocent men to their deaths" is absolutely meaningless drivel. And whatever ballistics evidence Russell feels can be had from firing old bullets from an old gun still does not prove who fired that gun on the day of the crime.

The jury will always be out on this case. Whatever merits or demerits Mr. Russell's book has, it does nothing to resolve the case, or remove the fact that guilty or innocent, Sacco & Vanzetti did not get a fair and honest trial.

        Back in 1920, five men pulled a payroll robbery in South Braintree, Massachussetts.  Two men were later arrested, and tried for the crime, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1921, the two were convicted and sentenced to death, in 1927 they were executed.

        In the six years between conviction and execution, there was a long campaign aimed at convincing people that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent men, deliberately framed by the prosecutors because of their political convictions.

        Francis Russell once believed that.  Then, while serving on jury duty in the late 1950s, he watched the former prosecutor in action in a civil case, and became convinced that this man couldn't have deliberately sent two innocent men to their death.  But of course, they were innocent. Therefore, the prosecution must have been sincere, but wrong, in believing they were guilty.

        Russell wrote an article on these lines for American Heritage magazine, and then got a contract to do a whole book on the subject, Tragedy in Dedham, which is out of print.  Since his article had shown he didn't believe the cops and district attorney were murderers, he got a lot of cooperation.  He reviewed the evidence thoroughly, and in doing so, it occurred to him that there were new forensics tests available that might settle some long disputed questions.

        The tests were performed, and what do you know?  They showed that Sacco was guilty, though Vanzetti may have been innocent.  Russell so wrote in Tragedy in Dedham.

        But the people who insisted on Sacco's and Vanzetti's innocence weren't interested in facts, and still aren't.  They start out with the proclamation that S. & V. were innoncent, then come up with reasons to dismiss the evidence in the case that goes against their line.  It's all a vast conspiracy, a conspiracy so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man, as Sen. Joe McCarthy said.  Not only was the evidence introduced at the trial faked, but evidence that no one would think to test for nearly forty years was faked too, just in case.  With such reasoning, one can "prove" anything.

        In Sacco & Vanzetti: The Case Resolved, Russell follows up his first book, showing how the politics of the case has always been more important than the truth, and how the Sacco & Vanzetti partisans have used the case for their political goals.  For those interested in the truth, this book will be immensely interesting.  Among the most interesting facts new facts Russell uncovered for this volume is that many of the S. & V. defenders believed them to be guilty.  Another is that many 'defenders' were quite happy to see the two executed.  Martyrs were better for the cause than live prisoners.

        Sacco was guilty.  Vanzetti may have been innocent.  No one was framed.  People who want to attack "the system" frequently lie about this case.  People interested in what happened will find this book a good place to start.

This is by far the worst "scholarly" work I've ever read. I never would have finished if I wasn't being paid to read it. Here's why: 1) All sources with allegedly commumnist affiliations are dismissed as un-believable. 2) Although he Russell claims to have read the trial transcript and he concludes that it supports his conclusions, he only quotes the jury instructions in support of his conclusions. 3) He discounts the 21 witnesses for the defence as members of a catholic/Italian conspiracy and therefore they are not credible. 4) Russell has footnotes but they are limited to newspaper headlines and other books. Russell makes many conclusions based on works he does not give citations to. 5) He concludes that Sacco's son's silence is proof of his father's innocense. When, Dante finally spoke out most eloquently in his fathers defense, Russell discounts Dante's words as "too eloquent" to have been written by Dante and therefore Dante is not credible. 6) Russell relies on evidence of people who made claims but those people all died before they could be cross examined or even double-checked. 7) Russell is inconsistent in presenting what evidence he has bothered to present. Russell relies on a letter (he claims he has) implicating Sacco, but also the letter states that the DA at the time was willing to ensure exile for S&V for $35,000; two pages latter Russell is lauding the DA for his moral standing and saying he never offered to let S&V go for a bribe. 8) Finally, Russell relies on balistic tests on Sacco's gun which had been tampered with and which had been in the Judge's possession for years after the trial.

In conclusion, the balistic evidence does give some food for thought. But the circumstances surrounding Sacco's gun are too strange for such balistic evidence to be considered as the slam-dunk of evidence in this case. For a better presentation of the balistic evidence watch the documentary on S&V's balistic evidence. Russell refers to the documentary in the book, but he doesn't give a footnote for it; I assume it was PBS, probably NOVA.

For a more objective presentation of the evidence read any encyclopedic entry.