Sacco and Vanzetti Executed After Seven Years of Biased Proceedings

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed by electric chair at Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts at 12:19 AM, exactly seven years after their arrest. Despite worldwide protests, new evidence suggesting innocence, and widespread doubt about the fairness of their trial, Massachusetts authorities proceed with the executions following Governor Alvin Fuller’s refusal to grant clemency. Vanzetti’s final statement proclaims: “I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all… I am an innocent man.”

Governor Fuller’s advisory committee, headed by Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell and including MIT President Samuel Stratton, had concluded the trial was fair despite documented judicial prejudice, questionable ballistics evidence, and witness recantations. The Lowell Committee’s whitewash exemplifies how elite institutions protect legal system legitimacy even when confronted with gross injustice. Judge Webster Thayer, who presided over the trial and denied multiple appeals, had privately called the defendants “dagos” and “anarchist bastards,” yet the Committee deemed his conduct appropriate. Thayer’s home is bombed in 1932, and he dies in 1933 under armed guard.

The executions trigger massive protests worldwide. General strikes occur in several South American countries. Bombs explode at American embassies and consulates in Paris, Buenos Aires, and other cities. Demonstrations draw hundreds of thousands in major European capitals. The case becomes a symbol of American injustice and anti-immigrant hysteria, referenced by countless artists, writers, and activists. In 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issues a proclamation declaring that Sacco and Vanzetti had been treated unjustly and that “any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed from their names.” The case demonstrates how the legal system can be weaponized against political dissidents and immigrants, with elite institutions providing cover for what prominent legal scholars of the era recognized as a miscarriage of justice.