1. Splaine, about _three weeks_[1] after the arrest, could not
identify Sacco. A _year later_[1] she testified that he had been in
the murder car, describing sixteen details of his personal appearance!
Dr. Morton Prince, professor of abnormal and dynamic psychology at
Harvard University, comments on this testimony: “I do not hesitate
to say that the star witness for the government testified honestly
enough, no doubt, to what was psychologically impossible. Miss
Splaine testified, though she had only seen Sacco at the time of
the shooting, from a distance of about sixty feet, for from one
and a half to three seconds, in a motor car going at an increasing
rate of speed at about fifteen to eighteen miles an hour, that she
saw, and at the end of a year she remembered and described, sixteen
different details of his person, even to the size of his hand, length
of his hair, as being between two and two and a half inches long,
and the shade of his eyebrows! Such perception and memory under such
conditions can be easily proved to be psychologically impossible.”
2. Devlin, a _month_[1] after the murders, testified: “He, (Sacco)
looks very much like the man that stood up in the back seat
shooting.” Q. “Do you say positively that he is the man?” A. “I don’t
say positively.”[1]
At the trial, _a year later_,[1] she had _no_[1] doubt, and when
asked: “Have you at any time had any doubt of your identification
of this man?” replied: “No.” She explained the circumstance of an
identification becoming sure after a lapse of time without additional
opportunity for verification, by saying: “At the time there I had in my
own mind that he was the man, but on account of the immensity of the
crime, and everything, I hated to say right out and out.”
Ferguson and Pierce, from a window above Splaine and Devlin, on the
next floor of the same factory, had substantially the same view as
the two women. They found it impossible to make any identification.
3. Pelzer, a young shoe cutter, swore that when he heard the shooting
he pulled up his window and saw the man who murdered Berardelli.
In the court room, in June, 1921, _a year after the crime_,[1] he
identified Sacco as that man. On cross-examination, Pelzer admitted
that _immediately after the arrest_[1] he was unable to make any
identification.
Of three workmen, who were at work in the same room, two testified
that instead of pulling up the window, he (Pelzer) took shelter under
a bench. The third was questioned thus: Q. “Did you hear him later
talk about the shooting?” A. “I think I did, but I am not sure.” Q.
“That day?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “What did you hear Pelzer say?” A.
“Well, I heard him say that he didn’t see anybody, that’s all.” Q.
“Is that all you recollect that you heard him say?” A. “Yes, sir.”
4. Lola Andrews, a woman of doubtful repute, testified that at about
11 a. m., the morning of the murders, with a Mrs. Campbell, she saw a
car standing outside the factory. She saw a “very light man” inside
the car (concededly neither Sacco nor Vanzetti) and another man
“bending over the hood of the car,” whom she characterized as a “dark
complexioned man.” She went into the factory in search of a job,
and at the time had no talk with either of the men. When she came
out, “fifteen minutes later,” the dark man “was down under the car,
like he was fixing something,” and she asked him the way to another
factory. He told her. That was the whole conversation between them.
After Sacco’s arrest, she was taken to the Dedham jail and identified
Sacco as the “dark complexioned man.” She again identified him at the
trial.
How came she to associate the “dark complexioned man” with the
murder, which took place four hours later?
Q. (By the Commonwealth) “What came to your mind when you learned of
the shooting?” A. “Why the only thing I can answer that is this: When
I heard of the shooting I somehow associated that to the man I saw
under the car.”
Four reputable witnesses completely discredited the foregoing Andrews
testimony.
(a) Mrs. Campbell, an elderly woman, with Andrews throughout the
episode, testified that although they saw an automobile in front of
the factory, the man of whom they asked the way to another factory
was _not_[1] the man under the car, but a man in khaki clothes
standing near.
(b) Harry Kurlansky, a business man of Quincy, who had known Lola
Andrews seven or eight years, talked with her in February. “She says,
‘They are bothering the life out of me.’ I says, ‘What?’ She says, ‘I
just come from jail.’ I says, ‘What have you done in jail?’ She says,
‘The government took me down and want me to recognize those men,’ she
says, ‘and I don’t know a thing about them. Unfortunately, I have
been down there to get a job, and I have seen many men that I don’t
know, and I have never paid any attention to any one.’”
(c) In February, 1921, Andrews complained to the police of an assault
on herself in her apartment in Quincy. To George W. Fay, a policeman
who investigated and who asked her if the man who assaulted her was
one of the men she saw at Braintree the day of the shooting. She
said she could not tell because _she didn’t see the faces_[1] of the
Braintree men.
(d) Alfred Lebrecque, a Quincy newspaper man, secretary of the
Quincy Chamber of Commerce, testified to a conversation with Andrews
substantially to the same effect as Fay’s.
5. Carlos E. Goodridge, (who, after the trial, was discovered to have
been a fugitive from justice in another state, and to have given
evidence under a false name), swore that at the time of the shooting
he was in a pool room in South Braintree; heard shots; stepped to
the door; saw the automobile coming toward him, and when he got to
the sidewalk a man in the automobile “poked a gun” over towards
him—whereupon he “went back into the pool room.”
About _seven months later_[1] he identified Sacco as that man _for
the first time_,[1] and identified him again at the trial.
Four witnesses squarely contradicted Goodridge’s belated
identification. (a) Andrew Manganaro, the employer of Goodridge,
told Goodridge, after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti, that he
(Goodridge) should go and see if he could recognize them and find out
if they were the murderers.
Q. “What did they say?” A. “He said he could not do it because when
he saw the gun he was so scared he run right in from where he was.
He could not possibly remember the faces.” Manganaro also testified,
without contradiction, that Goodridge’s reputation for veracity was
bad.
(b) Magazu, who ran the pool room, testified: “I says, ‘Did you see
the men?’ He says, ‘I seen the men, they pointed with the gun.’ I
says, ‘How did the man look?’ He says, ‘Young man, with _light hair,
light complexioned_,[1] and wore an army shirt.’” Q. “Which man?” A.
“One of the men pointing with the gun. I don’t know which.” Q. “Did
he say anything further about it to you?” A. “He says, ‘This job was
not pulled by any foreign people.’”
(c) Arrogni, a barber in South Braintree, testified that Goodrich
told him, “But if I have got to say who the man was I can’t say.”
(d) Damato, Arrogni’s boss, swore to the same effect.
In addition, Goodridge’s testimony was tainted with self-interest.
At the time he was a witness for the Commonwealth he was facing jail
under indictment for larceny, to which he had pleaded guilty. The
case had been “filed;” that is, no sentence has been imposed, and
Goodridge had been placed on probation. Unquestionably, Goodridge’s
testimony was influenced by leniency previously shown to him by the
District Attorney in connection with the first charge of larceny and
by fear of losing his immunity.
* * * * *