The Greatest Trials of All Time

After their execution, the fight to clear Sacco and Vanzetti's names continued for the

The now-famous trial of Sacco and Vanzetti began on May 31, 1921 in Dedham, Mass.

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next 50 years. Supporters around the world recognized that the Italian immigrants did not have a fair trial, a realization that also dawned on Massachusetts lawmakers over a decade after their deaths.

The Sacco and Vanzetti case inspired the Massachusetts legislature to adopt a new law -- Chapter 341 of the Acts of 1939 -- that gave the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court the power to order a new trial not only if a verdict violated the law, but also if it went against the evidence presented at trial or if new evidence surfaced. Sacco and Vanzetti surely would have benefited from this law during the various appeals of their conviction.

It was because of cases such as Sacco & Vanzetti's that the Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren ultimately made numerous decisions throughout the 1950s and 60s that the rights provided through due process and the Bill of Rights extended to the states, decisions that changed many states' legal systems.

Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis issues declares Sacco and Vanzetti day, 50 years after their conviction.
In 1977, as the 50th anniversary of their execution approached, then-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation declaring August 23 a memorial day for Sacco and Vanzetti and the Italian immigrants had been denied a fair trial. This proclamation, which was based on the review of the case by Dukakis' legal counsel, Daniel Taylor, recognized for the first time that the prosecutors and Judge Webster Thayer had committed a variety of abuses during the trial. It sought to vindicate the names of Sacco and Vanzetti and their families, and called for vigilance "against our susceptibility to prejudice, our intolerance of unorthodox ideas and our failure to defend the rights of persons who are looked upon as strangers in our midst."

Massachusetts' attempts to clear Sacco and Vanzetti -- and its own reputation -- continued as recently as 1997. On the 70th anniversary of their execution, Thomas Menino, the first Italian-American mayor of Boston, formally accepted and dedicated a memorial to Sacco and Vanzetti that had been previously rejected three times. The bronze sculpture, made in 1927 by Gutzon Borglum, who is best known for carving the presidential faces in Mt. Rushmore, shows Sacco and Vanzetti facing a tilted scales of justices. Borglum carved it when President Calvin Coolidge refused to grant them a stay of execution. Menino said that accepting the memorial was Boston's acknowledgment that Sacco and Vanzetti did not receive a fair trial.

That acknowledgement may be Sacco and Vanzetti's greatest legacy. Many historians believe that the two men's guilt or innocence may never be proven decisively. But they recognize their case as a dramatic illustration of how prejudice and hysteria can poison the legal system and cost people their lives.

Click here for suggested reading on anarchism and the Sacco and Vanzetti trial.

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