CHAPTER ELEVEN THE TRIAL: III (continued 2)
Reading edition
From the courtroom the sheriff led the jurymen down the corridor to a room on the left with the word jury stenciled on the frosted glass of the door. He closed the door behind them and locked it. They found themselves alone in a room containing nothing but a long table and twelve leather-cushioned chairs. Another door at the side led to the lavatory. John Dever noticed that all the doorknobs had the county seal embossed on them.
In their six weeks of close association the twelve men had developed a sense of camaraderie that would bind them together for the rest of their lives. Over thirty years later, Dever, destitute in a veteran’s hospital, would find himself visited by Atwood and Gerard, and there again they would talk over the case. But in this first moment of being alone no one quite knew how to begin.
Dever finally suggested that first of all they take an informal ballot, nothing binding, just to get an idea how they felt. Sitting around the table, each marked a slip of paper and handed it down to Ripley who, as foreman, occupied the end seat. Dever believed the defendants guilty but he voted for acquittal on the first ballot to open up a discussion. The vote was ten to two for conviction. “Then,” Dever told a reporter long afterward, “we started discussing things, reviewed the very important evidence about the bullets, and everybody had a chance to speak his piece. There never was any argument, though. We just were convinced Sacco and Vanzetti had done what the prosecution had charged them with.” The Winchester bullet taken from Berardelli’s body had, they felt, been fired from Sacco’s pistol. And the same three kinds of shells that Thomas Fraher had picked up in front of Rice & Hutchins had been found in Sacco’s pocket. Seward Parker remarked that you couldn’t depend on the witnesses—“but the bullets, there’s no way of getting round that.” Alfred Atwood agreed with him. John Ganley was impressed by what Reed, the Matfield gate-tender, said about seeing Vanzetti at the crossing. The twelve did not even bother to ballot again. They talked over various aspects of the case but no longer debated guilt or innocence. Someone suggested that they ask for a reading glass to examine the bullets. A deputy brought them one. It would have been possible for them to bring in their verdict at the end of the afternoon. They decided, however, that it would look better if they waited until after supper. Shortly after six Judge Thayer sent them out to eat. By half-past seven they were back.
The shadows of the trees and the buildings were long across the High Street, but the setting sun brought no relief from the heat. A scattering of spectators waited in the courtroom. There were groups of white-shirted figures on the steps, on the grass, on the sidewalk across the street, restless groups that joined together, broke apart, or receded in the direction of Dedham Square. Always there was a corporal’s guard of newspapermen to keep a careful eye on the upper rear window where, behind the plate glass, the overhead light had now been turned on.
At 7:55 Deputy Sheriff Fales heard a triple knock on the jury-room door. It was sharp, final, not the tentative knock meaning that a reading glass or some such thing was wanted. He unlocked the door and Ripley told him the verdict was ready. Fales’ face kept its professional impassivity. He took the message, locked the door again, then went downstairs to telephone the warden at the jail. To the newsmen who looked at him questioningly as he passed, he nodded.
A few minutes before, a slight breeze had sprung up. Harold Williams, the McAnarneys, several state troopers, and deputy sheriffs were standing near the columns enjoying the coolness when someone came out and whispered the news. An invisible telegraph seemed to flash the word through Dedham. The white-shirted groups on the grass dissolved, the loungers vanished, from all directions running figures converged on the courthouse. The High Street echoed with footsteps. Upstairs the courtroom windows suddenly blazed with light.
In the ten minutes that it took to bring the defendants over from the jail the gates had been closed and a guard of troopers thrown around the courthouse. On the steps a crowd that by now stretched across the street forced its way up to the iron barrier. Those who had gone up to the courtroom earlier were allowed to stay, but, except for the lawyers and the newspapermen, no one else was admitted.
Sacco and Vanzetti were brought in through the side entrance, taken up the back stairs, their handcuffs removed, and the door of the cage closed behind them. Sacco looked pale, almost ill. Vanzetti spoke a few words to him, a frown scoring his forehead. Rosina sat close by, making quick birdlike movements, managing to smile each time her husband glanced at her.
The pause before the jury entered the room was so oppressive that it became almost tangible. Inside the bar enclosure the lawyers waited, Moore fiddling with a pencil, his hair dank. The deputies stood at the entrances, the stenographers had their notebooks open, Judge Thayer sat in his place. From time to time everyone in the courtroom glanced at the twelve empty seats flanked by the American flag. Then the door opened.
The jurors filed in, their eyes fixed on the floor. Seeing their mood, Tom McAnarney raised his arm in a gesture of despair. The lines between Vanzetti’s eyes were like cords. Sacco glanced from one face to another as the jury passed.
The jurors settled in their seats. Judge Thayer nodded obliquely at Clerk Worthington who, precise and impersonal, asked them if they had agreed on a verdict. Then, scarcely waiting for the foreman’s reply, he called out “Nicola Sacco.” Sacco rose to his feet as if he were in a trance, and Worthington’s singsong voice continued:
“Hold up your right hand, Mr. Foreman; look upon the prisoner. Prisoner, look upon the foreman. What say you, Mr. Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?”
Ripley’s voice was like a croak as he spoke the one word. “Guilty.”
“Guilty of murder?” Worthington went on.
“Murder,” Ripley answered him.
“In the first degree?”
“In the first degree.”
While the impact of the verdict was still in transit, Worthington rapidly repeated the formula for Vanzetti.
“What say you, Mr. Foreman; is Bartolomeo Vanzetti guilty or not guilty of murder?”
“Guilty,” Ripley croaked again.
“In the first degree, upon each indictment?”
“In the first degree.”
“Hearken to your verdicts as the Court has recorded them,” Worthington hurried on, his words falling limply in the hush. “You, gentlemen, upon your oath, say that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti is each guilty of murder in the first degree upon each indictment. So say you, Mr. Foreman? So, gentlemen, you all say?”
There were murmurs of “We do, we do,” from the jury box. Vanzetti stood in the cage, his arm still raised in the air. Then suddenly Sacco’s voice rang through the courtroom: “Sono innocente!”
“Sono innocente!” he shouted again, and behind the cage Rosina cried loudly, ran to him breaking through the ring of guards and throwing her arms around his neck. Her hat fell off and her copper-red hair tumbled about her neck. “You bet your life,” she babbled. Then she cried out as if overwhelmed, “What am I going to do? I’ve got two children. Oh, Nick. They kill my man.” She clung to him sobbing, burying her face in his neck, the torrent of her words unintelligible. Sacco stood upright, paler than ever, stroking her head and occasionally whispering to her. Vanzetti, next to them, said nothing, but his face was drawn with sympathy. Moore tried gently to disengage her. Finally a policeman removed her from Sacco’s shoulder and led her away.
Judge Thayer nodded to the clerk for adjournment. No one was even aware of his few words of thanks to the jury.
“They kill an innocent men!” Sacco called out in a shaken voice as judge and jury were leaving. Several of the jurymen looked back at him but none of them paused. “Don’t forget. Two innocent men they kill!” he shouted at them.
Within ten minutes the police and deputies had delivered the defendants back to the jail. On their way there the loiterers on the courthouse steps pushed forward and Sheriff Capen threatened to draw his gun if they came any closer.
Now the darkened streets were as empty as the courtroom. Lawyers, deputies, public, all had gone except Tom McAnarney, who was rummaging among some papers on the oak table. As he closed his brief case he noticed Assistant District Attorney Williams in the doorway, and observing the customary legal etiquette he stepped toward him with extended hand.
“Congratulations,” he said, “on a brilliant victory.” Then he noticed that the other’s face was wet with tears.
“For God’s sake, don’t rub it in,” said Williams, without taking his hand. “This is the saddest thing that ever happened to me in my life.” And with the tears still streaming down his cheeks he walked on through the courtroom.