By “consciousness of guilt” Judge Thayer inferred that the conduct
of Sacco and Vanzetti, after the murder, was the conduct of
murderers. This inference of guilt was drawn from their behavior on
the night of May 5th, before and after their arrest, and also from
their possession of firearms.
What was their conduct on the night of May 5th, and how did they
come to possess firearms?
It will be remembered that as the murder was being committed a car
containing several other men drew up. The murderers threw the two
boxes containing the money into the car, jumped in and sped away
at high speed across near-by railroad tracks. Two days later this
car was found abandoned in woods a distance from the scene of the
crime. Leading away from this spot were tracks of a smaller car.
At the time of the Braintree hold-up the police were investigating
a similar hold-up in a neighboring town, Bridgewater. In both
hold-ups a gang was involved. In both they made off in a car. In
both eyewitnesses believed the criminals to be Italians. In the
Bridgewater hold-up, the car had left the scene _in the direction
of Cochesett_.[1] Police Chief Stewart, of Bridgewater, at the time
of the Braintree hold-up, was therefore on the trail of an Italian
owning or driving a car in Cochesett. He thought he had found his
man in one Boda, whose car was then in a garage awaiting repairs.
Stewart instructed the garage proprietor, Johnson, to telephone the
police when any one came to fetch it. Pursuing his investigation,
Stewart found that Boda had been living in Cochesett with a radical
named Coacci.
Now, on April 16, 1920, the day after the Braintree murders, Police
Chief Stewart, at the instance of the Department of Justice, then
engaged in the round-up of Reds, had been to the house of this
same Coacci to see why he had failed to appear at the hearing
regarding his deportation. He had found Coacci packing a trunk, and
apparently very anxious to get back to Italy. Coacci’s trunk and
his haste to depart for Italy were not connected in Stewart’s mind
with the Braintree affair; but when, later, the tracks of a smaller
car were found near the Braintree murder car, and he surmised that
this murder car was Boda’s, and discovered that Boda had once been
living with Coacci, he connected Coacci’s packing, his eagerness
to depart, his actual departure, with the Braintree murders, and
assumed that the trunk contained the booty. In the light of later
discoveries, Stewart jumped to the conclusion that Coacci, Boda’s
pal, had “skipped with the swag.” As a matter of fact, the contents
of the trunk, when it was intercepted by the Italian police, on
arrival, revealed nothing.
In the meantime, however, Stewart continued to work on his theory,
which centered around Boda: that whosoever called for Boda’s car,
at Johnson’s garage, would be suspected of the Braintree crime. On
the night of May 5th, Boda and three other Italians did in fact
call, and two of them were Sacco and Vanzetti.
To explain how they came to do so, let us recall here the
proceedings for the wholesale deportation of radicals under
Attorney-General Palmer, in the Spring of 1920. In particular, the
case of one Salsedo must be borne in mind, a radical who was held
incommunicado in the New York offices of the Department of Justice,
on the 14th floor of a Park Row building. Boda and his companions
were friends of Salsedo. On May 4th, the day before they called
at Johnson’s garage, they had learned that Salsedo had been found
dead on the sidewalk outside the Park Row building, to which he had
been thrown or jumped from the 14th floor. Already frightened by
the Red raids they bestirred themselves to “hide the literature and
notify the friends against the Federal police.” For this purpose an
automobile was needed, and they turned to Boda.
Such were the circumstances under which the four Italians appeared
on the evening of May 5th at the Johnson garage.
Mrs. Johnson telephoned the police. The car, not being available,
the Italians left, Sacco and Vanzetti to board a street-car for
Brockton, Boda and the fourth member, Orciani, on a motorcycle.
Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested on the street-car, Orciani was
arrested the next day, and Boda was never heard of again.
Stewart at once sought to apply his theory of the commission of the
two “jobs” by one gang. The theory, however, broke down. Orciani
had been at work on the days of both crimes so he was let go.
Sacco, in continuous employment at a shoe factory in Stoughton,
had taken one day off, on April 15th. Hence, while he could not
be charged with the Bridgewater crime, he was charged with the
Braintree murders. Vanzetti, a fish peddler at Plymouth, and his
own employer, could not give the same kind of alibi for either day,
and so he was held for both crimes.
The testimony concerning “consciousness of guilt:”
(1) Sacco and Vanzetti, as we have seen, were two of the four
Italians who called for Boda’s car at Johnson’s garage, on the
evening of May 5th. Following a prearranged plan, Mrs. Johnson went
to a neighbor’s (Bartlett’s) house to telephone the police. She
testified that the two defendants followed her back to the garage.
Thereafter, the men, having been advised by Mr. Johnson not to run
the car without the current year’s number plate, left without it.
Q. “Now, Boda came there to get his car, didn’t he?” A. “Yes, sir.”
Q. “There were no 1920 number plates on it.” A. “No.” Q. “You advised
him not to take the car and run it without 1920 plates, didn’t you?”
A. “Yes.” Q. “And he accepted your view?” A. “He seemed to.” Q. “He
seemed to. And after some conversation, went away?” A. “Yes.”
This was the whole of the testimony on the strength of which Judge
Thayer put the following question to the jury:
“Did the defendants, in company with Orciani and Boda, leave the
Johnson house because the automobile had no 1920 number plate on it,
or because they were conscious of or becoming suspicious of what Mrs.
Johnson did in the Bartlett house? If they left because they had no
1920 number plates on the automobile, then you may say there was no
consciousness of guilt in consequence of the sudden departure; but if
they left because they were consciously guilty[2] of what was being
done by Mrs. Johnson in the Bartlett house, then you may say that it
is evidence tending to prove consciousness of guilt on their part.”
(2) Following their departure from the Johnson House, Sacco and
Vanzetti were arrested by policemen who boarded their street-car as
it was coming into Brockton.
Three policemen testified as to their behavior after being taken into
custody. The testimony of the police that Sacco and Vanzetti were
about to draw pistols was emphatically denied by them.
(3) In statements made to the District Attorney and the chief
of police, at the police station after their arrest, both Sacco
and Vanzetti lied. By mis-statements they tried to conceal their
movements on the day of their arrest, the friends they had been to
see, the places they had visited. For instance, Vanzetti denied that
he knew Boda.
The other evidence from which the “consciousness of guilt” was
drawn Sacco and Vanzetti admitted. They acknowledged that they
behaved in the way described by Mrs. Johnson, and freely stated that
when questioned at the police station they told lies. What is the
explanation of this conduct?
Plainly, their arrest meant to Sacco and Vanzetti arrest for
radicalism, for when apprehended they were not confronted with the
charge of murder. They were told they were arrested as “suspicious
characters.” But why did that scare them into telling lies?
The early winter of 1919-20 saw the beginning of the infamous
campaign by the Department of Justice, under Attorney General
Mitchell Palmer, for the wholesale arrest and deportation of Reds.
The details of these raids, their brutality and their lawlessness,
are set forth authoritatively in decisions of the United States
courts, condemning the misconduct of the Department of Justice.
Boston was one of the worst centers of lawlessness. One of the
leading citizens of Boston, Mr. John F. Moors, himself a banker,
has called attention to the fact that “the hysteria against the
Reds was so great at the time when these men were convicted that
even the most substantial bankers in this city were carried away
to the extent of paying for full page advertisements about the Red
peril.”
Now, Sacco and Vanzetti were notorious Reds. They were associates
of leading radicals. They had for some time been on the list
of suspects of the Department of Justice, and were especially
obnoxious because they had evaded the draft. Not only were they
living in an overwhelming atmosphere of apprehension, but also
the terrorizing methods of the Government had a very real meaning
to them. For, as mentioned above, two of their friends had been
deported, and one, Salsedo had, they had learned the day before,
after having been detained incommunicado by the Department of
Justice for a long period of time, been thrown or jumped from a
window of a building on Park Row, New York. Sacco and Vanzetti had
been urged by their friends to dispose of their radical literature
and thus eliminate the most damaging evidence in the deportation
proceedings they feared. It was to carry out this advice that
Vanzetti and his friends were trying to get Boda’s car from
Johnson’s garage on May 5th. And we cannot avoid concluding that
Sacco and Vanzetti’s actions after their arrest were dictated, not
by fear of arrest for murder, but by fear of deportation, or worse,
for radicalism.
We have seen the Commonwealth abandon its first line of attack. It
now abandons its second, and finally we shall see how, depending
entirely upon its third line, it succeeds, through the cooperation
of Judge, District Attorney, and firearms expert, in bamboozling
the jury, already eager to convict these Reds, into believing that
the “mortal bullet” actually passed through Sacco’s pistol.
[Sidenote: III.