title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine's religious beliefs are never fully confirmed, and she appears to have little interest in religion. She expresses shock when Puddy is revealed as a devout Christian. She views saying "God bless you" as a "silly superstition" in "The Good Samaritan". It is likely that Elaine was raised Catholic, as her last name is Czech in origin (see Edvard Benes) and the Czech people are, for the most part, historically Catholic. It is strongly suggested in the show that Elaine is Catholic when she is seen making the sign of the cross before entering Jerry's apartment to retrieve a manuscript while the apartment is being fumigated in "The Doodle", and crosses herself again in "The Betrayal" after turning her back on a Hindu altar. Furthermore, in "The Pick", Elaine is horrified when she realizes she sent a Christmas card which features her nipple to "Sister Mary Catherine" and "Father Chelios". Also notable was Elaine's celebration of Christmas as we see her apartment-holiday decor skills on full display (including a grand Christmas tree) in "The Race". In multiple episodes, including "The Strong Box" and "The Wizard", she can be seen wearing a crucifix. In "The Postponement" and "The Fatigues", Elaine states that she is not Jewish.


title: Elaine Benes

text: Though her ethnicity is never made clear, the name Beneš is a common Czech surname. Her boyfriend incorrectly assumed that she was Hispanic in "The Wizard". In "The Wink", her cousin Holly repeatedly mentions a "Grandma Memma" who apparently shared a mutual dislike with Elaine's side of the family. Elaine claims to have an IQ of 145 (although her scores range from 85 to 150).


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine's father, a gruff novelist named Alton Benes (Lawrence Tierney), was featured in "The Jacket". In "The Wait Out", Elaine reveals to David Lookner that Alton left her and the rest of her family when she was nine years old. Elaine is the only main character in the series whose mother never makes an appearance.


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine has a sister, Gail, and a nephew; they are first mentioned in "The Pick". In "The Airport", it is revealed that Gail lives in St. Louis. Elaine has a cousin, Holly, who appears in "The Wink", where reference is made to Elaine's grandmother Mema, from whom Holly inherited a set of cloth napkins. It is not revealed if Mema is her maternal or paternal grandmother.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Stock Tip", Elaine mentions she has an Uncle Pete. In "The Secret Code", she mentions an uncle who worked in the Texas School Book Depository with Lee Harvey Oswald. Whether the two uncles are the same person is not revealed.


title: Elaine Benes

text: During Seasons 2 to 5, Elaine works at Pendant Publishing under her boss Mr. Lippman, where she served as a copy editor. She loses her job at the end of Season 5 when the company goes bankrupt and a misunderstanding resulting from her penchant for chewy, speech-impairing Jujyfruit candies thwarts a merger that might have saved the company. ("The Opposite").


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine later becomes a personal assistant to the eccentric, demanding Justin Pitt, starting in "The Chaperone", but later is fired when Mr. Pitt thinks she and Jerry are conspiring to kill him in "The Diplomat's Club".


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine meets J. Peterman on the street ("The Understudy") and becomes an editor at his "J. Peterman Catalog", where she remains employed for the rest of the series. Starting in "The Foundation", she takes charge of the catalog when Peterman suffers a nervous breakdown and flees to Burma. Once Peterman returns to find an ineffective reshuffling of employees in "The Money" she is demoted back to her former position. Peterman also fires her twice: first when her penchant for poppy seed muffins causes her to fail a drug test in "The Shower Head" and later in "The English Patient" when she expresses her hatred for the movie "The English Patient". She is able to recover her job by agreeing to live temporarily in a remote cave in the desert of Tunisia.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Sponge", Elaine is desperate to buy a cache of discontinued contraceptive sponges before existing stock is exhausted. She coins the word "spongeworthy" debating her then-boyfriend's prospects of intimacy at the expense of her inventory.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Stall", Elaine is dating Tony, a very good-looking athletic type. After a rock climbing accident mangles Tony's face, Elaine admits to Jerry that she cannot date somebody who is unattractive and wonders how long she is obligated to stay with him post-accident.


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine has a particular affection for "A Streetcar Named Desire". In "The Pen", Elaine shows her love for the movie when she becomes unintentionally high on muscle relaxers and repeatedly screams "Stella" at a fancy awards dinner for Morty Seinfeld in Florida.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Boyfriend", Elaine reveals her disgust for smokers, which leads to a breakup with Keith Hernandez. Her dislike of smoking also leads to an argument with a fortune-teller in "The Suicide". However, in "The Calzone" and "The Foundation" she is seen smoking a Cuban cigar.


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine is a breathtakingly poor dancer. Her performance at a J. Peterman company party, the central plot theme of "The Little Kicks", causes George to describe it as "a full-bodied dry heave set to music." The moves are repeated in her bedroom in a short scene of "The Slicer". Both clips appear in "The Clip Show, Pt. 1".


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Andrea Doria", Elaine dates Alan, a "bad breaker-upper", who makes her feel insecure about having a big head. In the episode she describes herself as a "walking candy apple" after a bird runs into her "giant, freak head."


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Smelly Car", Elaine repulses her boyfriend Carl when her hair smells of body odor from riding in Jerry's car. She goes to extreme lengths to get the smell out but nothing works, and he continues to be grossed out.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Postponement", Elaine confides in a rabbi that she is jealous of George's engagement to Susan Ross because George would be getting married before her and she considers George a loser. The Rabbi proceeds to tell everybody in Elaine's apartment complex and later on his cable TV show about her insecurity.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Chinese Woman", Jerry describes how Elaine has had a destructive effect on her relationship with her friend Noreen. It is revealed that over the course of their friendship, Elaine has convinced Noreen to join the Army, then go AWOL, dump her "high-talker" boyfriend and then her "long-talker" boyfriend. Eventually, Kramer steps in and forbids Elaine to have any more contact with Noreen.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Muffin Tops", Elaine convinces her ex-boss Mr. Lippman to start his own business selling just "muffin tops". However, they soon run into problems when no one will take the leftover stumps, and only by calling in "The Cleaner" (who turns out to be Newman) can they get rid of them.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Non-Fat Yogurt", Elaine suggests to Lloyd Braun, an advisor to Mayor David Dinkins, that everybody in the city should wear name tags. Lloyd Braun suggests this idea to the mayor, who likes it so much that he adds it to his campaign, subsequently leading to his loss in the mayoral elections. In "The Gum", it's revealed that Lloyd Braun also loses his job and later has a nervous breakdown.


title: Elaine Benes

text: Jerry and Elaine dated for a while before the show started. They started dating in 1986 (as revealed in "The Truth") and dated until 1990. In "The Deal", Elaine states they only had sex 37 times. In "The Stakeout", Jerry tells his parents that the reason for the break-up had to do with fighting too much and "physical chemistry".


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Deal", Jerry and Elaine create a set of rules whereby they can be sexually intimate but remain only friends. However, their theory is ruined when Elaine is furious over Jerry giving her $182 as a birthday gift. In "The Mango", Jerry is shocked to discover that Elaine had feigned her orgasms while they were together.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Serenity Now", Jerry's uninhibited, exaggerated emotional state causes him to ask Elaine to marry him. Shocked, she makes an excuse and leaves. She returns later to accept his proposal, but Jerry has by that time settled to his usual stable emotional state and says "I don't see it happening." In "The Finale", when they think their airplane is about to crash, Elaine says "I've always loved y...", but the pilot is able to steady the airplane. Elaine later explained in court that she was going to say "I've always loved United Airlines."


title: Elaine Benes

text: During her interview on "Inside the Actors Studio", Julia Louis-Dreyfus said she believed Jerry and Elaine were soul mates but would never end up together because they were both too "insane and messed up."


title: Elaine Benes

text: In the reunion episode featured in Season 7 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", it is revealed in the years since the finale Jerry has donated sperm to Elaine that results in her having a daughter, who has taken to calling Jerry "Uncle Jerry", but by the episode's end, it is said she now refers to him as "daddy" to Jerry and Elaine's clear discomfort.


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine's longest relationship, besides that with Jerry, is with Puddy (Patrick Warburton), an auto mechanic turned car salesman. Elaine begins dating David in the latter half of Season 6, and later for the majority of Season 9. Puddy has a casual approach to their relationship as seen in "The Voice" when Puddy claims he just likes her for the sex. In the same episode, when Elaine tells him that they're back together, he answers "Oh, no". In "The Finale", when Elaine is about to be taken away to prison, she emotionally tells Puddy to "not wait for her". Puddy answers back with a simple, casual, "Alright."


title: Elaine Benes

text: Over several episodes in Season 4, she dates Joe Davola, who is--unbeknownst to Elaine--simultaneously stalking Jerry.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Masseuse", she dates a man named Joel Rifkin, who shares the same name as a notorious serial killer.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Sniffing Accountant" she dates Jake Jarmel, an up-and-coming writer and star client of Pendant Publishing. She dumps him because of his reluctance to use exclamation points.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Bizarro Jerry", she dates Kevin, the nice, kind antithesis of Jerry whose friends Gene, Feldman and Vargas are polar opposites of George, Kramer and Newman, respectively, each described as coming from the backwards Bizarro World of Superman comics.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Stall", her boyfriend Tony, dubbed a male bimbo or "mimbo" by Jerry, becomes George's new idol.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Checks", her boyfriend Brett is so obsessed with the song "Desperado" that she feels ignored whenever it comes on. She tries to find a song that they can share and comes up with "Witchy Woman", but it does not work. Both songs are by the Eagles.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Wizard", Elaine is not sure if her new boyfriend Darryl is black or not and gets mixed signals when she tries to find out. It turns out he is white and he thought Elaine was Hispanic.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Non-Fat Yogurt", Elaine dates Lloyd Braun. Since Lloyd works for the mayor, she tells him that the city would be a better place if everybody wore name tags. He mentions this to the mayor, who eventually loses re-election as a result.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Maestro", Elaine starts dating Bob Cobb, a conductor who insists on being called "Maestro". They eventually go to Tuscany together.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Betrayal", Elaine is so unhappy at receiving an "unvitation" (a deliberately last-minute invitation) to Sue Ellen Mischke's wedding that she travels all the way to India just to attend. At the wedding, George reveals that Elaine had once dated the groom, leading Sue Ellen to rip out Elaine's nose-ring.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Cigar Store Indian", Elaine angers Frank Costanza by taking his "TV Guide" without asking and then spilling her gyro on it. Then, in "The Little Kicks", she and Frank come to blows after George is arrested along with Elaine's coworker Anna. Elaine says to Frank, "I could drop you like a bag of dirt." Frank replies, "You want a piece of me? You got it." Later, when Jerry chides her for fighting with an old man, she says, "Hey, he wrote the check. I cashed it."


title: Elaine Benes

text: Elaine's abortion argument with restaurateur Poppie gets him so angry that he loses control of his bladder in "The Couch" and again in "The Doorman".


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Soup Nazi", Elaine refuses to abide by the rules of a strict soup stand owner nicknamed "The Soup Nazi" and therefore becomes the subject of his ire. When she finds his secret recipes that he accidentally left in an armoire, she hints that she will drive him out of business, gloating that he's "through."


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Summer of George", Elaine makes an enemy of her coworker Sam (Molly Shannon). First, when Elaine criticizes Sam's way of walking ("It's like she's carrying invisible suitcases"), Sam gets furious and threatens revenge. Then, Raquel Welch (who was recently fired from a musical for dancing without swinging her arms), sees Elaine describing the walk to the police and thinks that Elaine is making fun of her and attacks her.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Understudy", after she thinks her Korean manicurists are making fun of her, she angers them by bringing in Frank Costanza, who is fluent in Korean, to eavesdrop on them.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Fire", Elaine reveals her hate for her overly energetic, always-happy colleague Toby. Then, when Toby loses her pinky toe in an accident (caused by Jerry), an outpouring of office sympathy leads Toby to a major promotion instead of the more qualified Elaine.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Visa" she and Jerry anger Pakistani immigrant Babu Bhatt after she fails to notice Babu's visa application in Jerry's mail that she is picking up for him.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Susie", co-worker Peggy tells Elaine--who she thinks is a woman named Susie--that Elaine is a "dolt" and "disaster". Later, in "The Apology", Peggy thinks Elaine has germs, and in retaliation Elaine intentionally coughs on Peggy's doorknob, rubs her stapler in her armpit, and rubs her keyboard on her backside.


title: Elaine Benes

text: In "The Package", it is revealed that Elaine's medical charts characterize her as a "difficult" patient to such a degree that she cannot receive treatment for a rash because one doctor after another refuses to treat her.


title: Damian Marley

text: Damian Robert Nesta "Jr. Gong" Marley (born 21 July 1978) is a Jamaican DJ, singer, lyricist and rapper. He is the recipient of four Grammy Awards.


title: Damian Marley

text: Damian Marley is the youngest son of reggae musician Bob Marley. He is the only child born to Marley and Cindy Breakspeare, a Jamaican jazz musician, former model and crowned Miss World 1976. After seeing the movie "", which is about the coming of the Antichrist, one of Bob's last requests in Germany was to have Damian's name changed. "Damien being a devil...It was inappropriate for him as a Rastafarian to have a child with that name," Bob said and Damian's name was later changed.


title: Damian Marley

text: Damian was two years old when his father died. His nickname "Junior Gong" is derived from his father's nickname of "Tuff Gong".


title: Damian Marley

text: At the age of 13, he formed a musical group by the name of the Shephards, which included the daughter of Freddie McGregor and son of Third World's Cat Coore. The group opened the 1992 Reggae Sunsplash festival. The band fell apart in the early 1990s, and Damian started his solo career.


title: Damian Marley

text: With the backing of his father's label, Tuff Gong, he released his 1996 debut album "Mr. Marley", which surprised many who were unaccustomed to hearing a Marley deejaying rather than singing.


title: Damian Marley

text: Marley released his second studio album "Halfway Tree". The name "Halfway Tree" comes from his mother Cindy Breakspeare being from the rich part of town, and his father Bob Marley coming from the poor part of town, thus him being "a tree halfway in between the 'rich' world and 'poor' world." Additionally, Halfway Tree is a well-known landmark that marks the cultural center of Half-Way-Tree, the clock tower that stands where the historical eponymous cotton tree once stood is featured prominently behind Marley on the cover of the album. The album was released on 11 September 2001 and received the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album. It was co-produced by Damian Marley and his brother Stephen Marley, who had also produced Damian's debut album "Mr. Marley".


title: Damian Marley

text: Marley released his third studio album "Welcome to Jamrock" which was released on 12 September 2005 in the United States and 13 September 2005 in the United Kingdom. The album sold 86,000 copies in its first week of release, and was eventually certified gold after selling 500,000 copies in the United States.


title: Damian Marley

text: Damian's half-brother, Stephen Marley, was a producer and co-writer of the hugely successful song of the same name. The lyrics to the single "Welcome to Jamrock", which was performed over a riddim produced by Sly and Robbie for Ini Kamoze some 20 years earlier, centred around poverty, politics and crime in Jamaica. While the single was controversial at home over its perceived negative viewpoint of the island, many praised the content of the song. Dr Clinton Hutton, professor at the University of the West Indies, said of the single: "'Jamrock' uses the icon of the inner city, of alienation, of despair, of prejudice, but of hope, of Jamaican identity, to remind us of the fire of frustration, the fire of creativity, the fire of warning to open up our eyes and look within to the life we are living. And still some of us don't want to hear and to look and say enough is enough." The single reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart and number 55 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. It was also number 100 on the Top 100 Songs of the Decade listing by "Rolling Stone".


title: Damian Marley

text: Other notable singles from the album include "The Master Has Come Back", "Road to Zion" featuring Nas, and "Khaki Suit" featuring Bounty Killer and Eek-A-Mouse.


title: Damian Marley

text: At the 2006 Grammy Awards, he won Best Reggae Album and Best Urban/Alternative Performance for "Welcome to Jamrock". He is the only Jamaican reggae artist in history to win two Grammy Awards on the same night. He is also the only reggae artist to win in the Best Urban/Alternative Performance category at the Grammy Awards.


title: Damian Marley

text: In 2008, he made an appearance on singer Mariah Carey’s "E=MC²" album as a featured artist on the album track “Cruise Control”. At the 2009 Grammy Awards news of a collaborative album between Marley and Nas was announced, when Nas told MTV reporters "Right now, I'll tell you first, I'm working on an album with Damian Marley. We tryin' to build some schools in Africa with this one, and trying to build empowerment. We're tryin' to show love and stuff with this album. So, the record's ... all about really the 'hood and Africa also as well."


title: Damian Marley

text: On 17 May 2010, Marley released "Distant Relatives", a collaborative album with Nas. The album title refers not only to the bond between the artists but the connection to their African ancestry, which inspired the album both musically and lyrically. They have previously collaborated on "Road to Zion", on Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock" album. The album joins two different flavours of music with Marley's dub-rock aesthetic and Nas' flow. Damian and Stephen produced much of the album. The proceeds of this album will go to building schools in the Congo.


title: Damian Marley

text: The album debuted at number five on the US "Billboard" 200 chart with first-week sales of 57,000 copies. It serves as Nas's tenth top-ten album and Marley's second top-ten album in the United States. The album also entered at number four on "Billboard"s Digital Albums, and at number one on its R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, Rap Albums, and Reggae Albums charts.


title: Damian Marley

text: Internationally, "Distant Relatives" attained some chart success. It entered at number 33 on the European Top 100 Albums chart. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 30 on the UK Albums Chart and at number four on the R&B Albums Chart. In Canada, the album entered at number 9 on the Top 100 Albums chart. In Germany, it debuted at number 38 on the Media Control Charts.


title: Damian Marley

text: The first single, "As We Enter", was released on iTunes on 23 February 2010. It peaked at number 10 on the iTunes Hip Hop/Rap charts and number 41 on the iTunes Music charts. The single debuted at number 39 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Damian Marley

text: At a sold-out panel discussion on the African diaspora and its relation to music, sponsored by National Geographic, Damian and Stephen Marley and Nas were among the several hip-hop and reggae musicians voicing their solidarity. The discussion focused on the collaborations between artists of the two genres, and highlighted the "Distant Relatives" project.


title: Damian Marley

text: The existence of SuperHeavy was secret until May 2011. Mick Jagger, English musician and the lead vocalist of rock band The Rolling Stones, announced its formation on 20 May 2011. SuperHeavy was Dave Stewart's idea. Inspired by the sounds washing into his home in Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica, Stewart urged Jagger to fuse their sound with that of Indian orchestras. Stewart and Jagger had mutual liking for Indian orchestrations; thus, A. R. Rahman was added to the supergroup, as well as British singer Joss Stone. The name of the band is said to be inspired by Muhammad Ali.


title: Damian Marley

text: The group began recording their self-titled debut album in early 2009 at a studio in Los Angeles. They recorded about 35 hours of music. The album was previewed at Jim Henson Studios, Los Angeles, on 30 June 2011. The band played eight of the recorded songs at the event.


title: Damian Marley

text: "Miracle Worker" was released on iTunes as the album's lead single on 7 July 2011. It is a reggae song performed by Marley, Stone and Jagger. The single entered at number 195 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video was released on YouTube on 12 August 2011. Directed by Stewart and filmed at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, the video features all five members of the band.


title: Damian Marley

text: "Satyameva Jayathe" (the national motto of India, which literally translates as "Truth Alone Triumphs") was released as the second single from the album on 9 August 2011, a week before India's Independence Day on 15 August. Composed by Rahman to have an Indian feel, Jagger sings in Sanskrit on the song, which also features Stewart, Stone and Marley. The song premiered exclusively on Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM on 9 August across twenty-two Indian cities, and Tata DoCoMo is set to simultaneously promote the song and the album on mass media.


title: Damian Marley

text: Damian also worked with electronic artist Skrillex on a song called "Make It Bun Dem" in 2012. This song also appears in the 2012 game Far Cry 3. Affairs of the Heart was a massive hit in Jamaica, topping the reggae charts.


title: Damian Marley

text: Damian Marley released his fourth studio album, "Stony Hill", in July 2017. Its first single "Nail Pon Cross" was released in August 2016. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Damian Marley

text: Marley has described his music as "dancehall and reggae. I've noticed ... people trying to separate the two of them," he continues. "It's Jamaican culture in general. I don't try to classify or separate."


title: Damian Marley

text: "Distant Relatives" fused hip hop and reggae musical elements, Marley and Nas also incorporated samples from African music into the album. The album's lyrical content heavily revolves around themes concerning Africa, from ancestry and poverty, with social commentary of the United States and Africa. The track "Count Your Blessings" reflects on the plight of Africa.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is an IQ test designed to measure intelligence and cognitive ability in adults and older adolescents. The original WAIS (Form I) was published in February 1955 by David Wechsler, as a revision of the Wechsler–Bellevue Intelligence Scale, released in 1939. It is currently in its fourth edition ("WAIS-IV") released in 2008 by Pearson, and is the most widely used IQ test, for both adults and older adolescents, in the world.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WAIS is founded on Wechsler's definition of intelligence, which he defined as "... the global capacity of a person to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment." He believed that intelligence was made up of specific elements that could be isolated, defined, and subsequently measured. However, these individual elements were not entirely independent, but were all interrelated. His argument, in other words, is that general intelligence is composed of various specific and interrelated functions or elements that can be individually measured.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: This theory differed greatly from the Binet scale which, in Wechsler's day, was generally considered the supreme authority with regard to intelligence testing. A drastically revised new version of the Binet scale, released in 1937, received a great deal of criticism from David Wechsler (after whom the original Wechsler–Bellevue Intelligence scale and the modern Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IV are named).


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: These criticisms of the 1937 Binet test helped produce the Wechsler–Bellevue scale, released in 1939. However, the present-day WAIS-IV has contradicted many of these criticisms, by incorporating a single overall score, using multiple timed tasks, focusing on intellective items and other ways. While this scale has been revised (resulting in the present day WAIS-IV), many of the original concepts Wechsler argued for, have become standards in psychological testing, including the point-scale concept and the performance-scale concept.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: In the Binet scales (prior to the 1986 version) items were grouped according to age level. Each of these age levels was composed of a group of tasks that could be passed by two-thirds to three-quarters of the individuals in that level. This meant that items were not arranged according to content. Additionally, an individual taking a Binet test would only receive credit if a certain number of the tasks were completed. This meant that falling short just one task required for the credit, resulted in no credit at all (for example, if passing three out of four tasks was required to receive credit, then passing two yielded no credit).


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The point scale concept significantly changed the way testing was done by assigning credits or points to each item. This had two large effects. First, this allowed items to be grouped according to content. Second, participants were able to receive a set number of points or credits for each item passed. The result was a test that could be made up of different content areas (or subtests) with both an overall score and a score for each content area. In turn, this allowed for an analysis to be made of an individual's ability in a variety of content areas (as opposed to one general score).


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The non-verbal performance scale was also a critical difference from the Binet scale. The earlier Binet scale had been persistently and consistently criticized for its emphasis on language and verbal skills. Wechsler designed an entire scale that allowed the measurement of non-verbal intelligence. This became known as a performance scale. This scale required a subject to actively do something, such as copying symbols or pointing to a missing detail in a picture, rather than just answering questions. This was an important development, as it attempted to overcome biases that were caused by "language, culture, and education." Further, this scale also provided an opportunity to observe a different type of behavior, because something physical was required. Clinicians were able to observe how a participant reacted to the "longer interval of sustained effort, concentration, and attention" that the performance tasks required.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: As the Wechsler–Bellevue scale was the first to effectively use the performance scale, it also introduced the "possibility of directly comparing an individual's verbal and nonverbal intelligence". This was possible as "the results of both scales were expressed in comparable units". The Binet scale did have performance tasks, but they were geared toward younger children. The Wechsler-Bellevue was also unique in that there were entire tests that were considered supplements or alternatives, including "performance" measures such as the Leiter International Performance Scale.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WAIS was initially created as a revision of the Wechsler–Bellevue Intelligence Scale (WBIS), which was a battery of tests published by Wechsler in 1939. The WBIS was composed of subtests that could be found in various other intelligence tests of the time, such as Robert Yerkes' army testing program and the Binet-Simon scale. The WAIS was first released in February 1955 by David Wechsler. Because the Wechsler tests included non-verbal items (known as "performance scales") as well as verbal items for all test-takers, and because the 1960 form of Lewis Terman's Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales was less carefully developed than previous versions, Form I of the WAIS surpassed the Stanford–Binet tests in popularity by the 1960s.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WAIS-R, a revised form of the WAIS, was released in 1981 and consisted of six verbal and five performance subtests. The verbal tests were: Information, Comprehension, Arithmetic, Digit Span, Similarities, and Vocabulary. The Performance subtests were: Picture Arrangement, Picture Completion, Block Design, Object Assembly, and Digit Symbol. A verbal IQ, performance IQ and full scale IQ were obtained.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: This revised edition did not provide new validity data, but used the data from the original WAIS; however new norms were provided, carefully stratified.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WAIS-III, a subsequent revision of the WAIS and the WAIS-R, was released in 1997. It provided scores for Verbal IQ, Performance IQ, and Full Scale IQ, along with four secondary indices (Verbal Comprehension, Working Memory, Perceptual Organization, and Processing Speed).


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: Included six tests and it also provided two sub-indices; perceptual organization and processing speed.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The current version of the test, the WAIS-IV, which was released in 2008, is composed of 10 core subtests and five supplemental subtests, with the 10 core subtests yielding scaled scores that sum to derive the Full Scale IQ. With the WAIS-IV, the verbal/performance IQ scores from previous versions were removed and replaced by the index scores. The General Ability Index (GAI) was included, which consists of the Similarities, Vocabulary and Information subtests from the Verbal Comprehension Index and the Block Design, Matrix Reasoning and Visual Puzzles subtests from the Perceptual Reasoning Index. The GAI is clinically useful because it can be used as a measure of cognitive abilities that are less vulnerable to impairments of processing speed and working memory.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WAIS-IV was standardized on a sample of 2,200 people in the United States, ranging in age from 16 to 90. The demographic characteristics of the sample were modeled after the proportions of different groups in an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. An extension of the standardization has been conducted with 688 Canadians in the same age range.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WAIS-IV measure is acceptable for use with people who are 16–90 years of age. For people younger than 16, the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI, 2½–7 years, 7 months) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC, 6–16 years) are used.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: Intelligence tests may be used to assess the level of cognitive functioning in individuals with psychiatric illness or brain injury. Rehabilitation psychologists and neuropsychologists use neuropsychological tests (including the WAIS-IV) to assess how the individual's brain is functioning after it has been injured. Specific subtests can provide insight into specific cognitive functions; for example, the digit span subtest could be used to look for attentional difficulties.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The Wechsler tests can also be used to identify intellectual giftedness, and are commonly accepted as qualifying evidence for high-IQ societies, such as Mensa, Intertel and the Triple Nine Society.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence - 2nd edition (WASI-II) is a short psychological test that was developed in 2011 by Pearson to estimate intellectual functioning in a shorter period of time than the WAIS-IV. The WASI-II only has 4 subtests: Block Design, Vocabulary, Similarities, and Matrix Reasoning, compared to the 10 core subtests that are present in the WAIS-IV. These 4 subtests have the same structure as the similarly-named subtests on the WAIS-IV, but have different questions.


title: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

text: The WASI-II can derive 4 composite scores from a combination of the 4 subtests. A Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) can be derived from the raw scores on the Vocabulary and Similarities subtests. A Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI) can be derived from the raw scores on the Matrix Reasoning and Block Design subtests. A Full Scale IQ-2 (FSIQ-2) can be derived from the raw scores on the Matrix Reasoning and Vocabulary subtests, while a Full Scale IQ-4 (FSIQ-4) can be derived from the raw scores on all 4 subtests.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and paymaster respectively, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant, and anti-Anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, and Auckland.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read "Atlantic Monthly" article that was later published in book form. Even the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was convinced of their innocence and attempted to pressure American authorities to have them released. The two were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified belief in their wrongful execution. Additional ballistics tests and incriminating statements by the men's acquaintances have clouded the case. On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names".


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Sacco was a shoemaker and a night watchman, born April 22, 1891, in Torremaggiore, Province of Foggia, Apulia region (in Italian: "Puglia"), Italy, who migrated to the United States at the age of seventeen. Before immigrating, according to a letter he sent while imprisoned, Sacco worked on his father's vineyard, often sleeping out in the field at night to prevent animals from destroying the crops. Vanzetti was a fishmonger born June 11, 1888, in Villafalletto, Province of Cuneo, Piedmont region. Both left Italy for the US in 1908, although they did not meet until a 1917 strike.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The men were believed to be followers of Luigi Galleani, an Italian anarchist who advocated revolutionary violence, including bombing and assassination. Galleani published "Cronaca Sovversiva" ("Subversive Chronicle"), a periodical that advocated violent revolution, and a bomb-making manual called "La Salute è in voi!" ("Health is in you!"). At the time, Italian anarchists – in particular the Galleanist group – ranked at the top of the United States government's list of dangerous enemies. Since 1914, the Galleanists had been identified as suspects in several violent bombings and assassination attempts, including an attempted mass poisoning. Publication of "Cronaca Sovversiva" was suppressed in July 1918, and the government deported Galleani and eight of his closest associates on June 24, 1919.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Other Galleanists remained active for three years, 60 of whom waged an intermittent campaign of violence against US politicians, judges, and other federal and local officials, especially those who had supported deportation of alien radicals. Among the dozen or more violent acts was the bombing of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's home on June 2, 1919. In that incident, Carlo Valdinocci, a former editor of "Cronaca Sovversiva", related to Sacco and Vanzetti, was killed when the bomb intended for Palmer exploded in the editor's hands. Radical pamphlets entitled "Plain Words" signed "The Anarchist Fighters" were found at the scene of this and several other midnight bombings that night.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Several Galleanist associates were suspected or interrogated about their roles in the bombing incidents. Two days before Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested, a Galleanist named Andrea Salsedo fell to his death from the US Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (BOI) offices on the 14th floor of 15 Park Row in New York City. Salsedo had worked in the Canzani Printshop in Brooklyn, to where federal agents traced the "Plain Words" leaflet.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Roberto Elia, a fellow New York printer and admitted anarchist, was later deposed in the inquiry, and testified that Salsedo had committed suicide for fear of betraying the others. He portrayed himself as the 'strong' one who had resisted the police. According to anarchist writer Carlo Tresca, Elia changed his story later, stating that Federal agents had thrown Salsedo out the window.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The Slater-Morrill Shoe Company factory was located on Pearl Street in Braintree, Massachusetts. On April 15, 1920, two men were robbed and killed while transporting the company's payroll in two large steel boxes to the main factory. One of them, Alessandro Berardelli—a security guard—was shot four times as he reached for his hip-holstered .38-caliber, Harrington & Richardson revolver; his gun was not recovered from the scene. The other man, Frederick Parmenter—a paymaster who was unarmed—was shot twice: once in the chest and a second time, fatally, in the back as he attempted to flee. The robbers seized the payroll boxes and escaped in a stolen dark blue Buick that sped up and was carrying several other men.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: As the car was being driven away by Michael Codispoti, the robbers fired wildly at company workers nearby. A coroner's report and subsequent ballistic investigation revealed that six bullets removed from the murdered men's bodies were of .32 automatic (ACP) caliber. Five of these .32-caliber bullets were all fired from a single semi-automatic pistol, a .32-caliber Savage Model 1907, which used a particularly narrow-grooved barrel rifling with a right-hand twist. Two of the bullets were recovered from Berardelli's body. Four .32 automatic brass shell casings were found at the murder scene, manufactured by one of three firms: Peters, Winchester, or Remington. The Winchester cartridge case was of a relatively obsolete cartridge loading, which had been discontinued from production some years earlier. Two days after the robbery, police located the robbers' Buick; several 12-gauge shotgun shells were found on the ground nearby.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: An earlier attempted robbery of another shoe factory occurred on December 24, 1919, in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, by people identified as Italian who used a car that was seen escaping to Cochesett in West Bridgewater. Police speculated that Italian anarchists perpetrated the robberies to finance their activities. Bridgewater police chief Michael E. Stewart suspected that known Italian anarchist Ferruccio Coacci was involved. Stewart discovered that Mario Buda (aka 'Mike' Boda) lived with Coacci.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: When Chief Stewart later arrived at the Coacci home, only Buda was living there, and when questioned, he said that Coacci owned a .32 Savage automatic pistol, which he kept in the kitchen. A search of the kitchen did not locate the gun, but Stewart found (in a kitchen drawer) a manufacturer's technical diagram for a Model 1907 of the exact type of .32 caliber pistol used to shoot Parmenter and Berardelli. Stewart asked Buda if he owned a gun, and the man produced a .32-caliber Spanish-made automatic pistol. Buda told police that he owned a 1914 Overland automobile, which was being repaired. The car was delivered for repairs four days after the Braintree crimes, but it was old and apparently had not been run for five months. Tire tracks were seen near the abandoned Buick getaway car, and Chief Stewart surmised that two cars had been used in the getaway, and that Buda's car might have been the second car.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: When Stewart discovered that Coacci had worked for both shoe factories that had been robbed, he returned with the Bridgewater police. Mario Buda was not home, but on May 5, 1920, he arrived at the garage with three other men, later identified as Sacco, Vanzetti, and Riccardo Orciani. The four men knew each other well; Buda would later refer to Sacco and Vanzetti as "the best friends I had in America".


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Sacco and Vanzetti boarded a streetcar, but were tracked down and soon arrested. When searched by police, both denied owning any guns, but were found to be holding loaded pistols. Sacco was found to have an Italian passport, anarchist literature, a loaded .32 Colt Model 1903 automatic pistol, and twenty-three .32 Automatic cartridges in his possession; several of those bullet cases were of the same obsolescent type as the empty Winchester .32 casing found at the crime scene, and others were manufactured by the firms of Peters and Remington, much like other casings found at the scene. Vanzetti had four 12-gauge shotgun shells and a five-shot nickel-plated .38-caliber Harrington & Richardson revolver similar to the .38 carried by Berardelli, the slain Braintree guard, whose weapon was not found at the scene of the crime. When they were questioned, the pair denied any connection to anarchists.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Orciani was arrested May 6, but gave the alibi that he had been at work on the day of both crimes. Sacco had been at work on the day of the Bridgewater crimes but said that he had the day off on April 15—the day of the Braintree crimes— and was charged with those murders. The self-employed Vanzetti had no such alibis and was charged for the attempted robbery and attempted murder in Bridgewater and the robbery and murder in the Braintree crimes. Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with the crime of murder on May 5, 1920, and indicted four months later on September 14.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Following Sacco and Vanzetti's indictment for murder for the Braintree robbery, Galleanists and anarchists in the United States and abroad began a campaign of violent retaliation. Two days later on September 16, 1920, Mario Buda allegedly orchestrated the Wall Street bombing, where a time-delay dynamite bomb packed with heavy iron sash-weights in a horse-drawn cart exploded, killing 38 people and wounding 134. In 1921, a booby trap bomb mailed to the American ambassador in Paris exploded, wounding his valet. For the next six years, bombs exploded at other American embassies all over the world.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Rather than accept court-appointed counsel, Vanzetti chose to be represented by John P. Vahey, a former foundry superintendent and future state court judge who had been practicing law since 1905, most notably with his brother James H. Vahey and his law partner Charles Hiller Innes. James Graham, who was recommended by supporters, also served as defense counsel. Frederick G. Katzmann, the Norfolk and Plymouth County District Attorney, prosecuted the case. The presiding judge was Webster Thayer, who was already assigned to the court before this case was scheduled. A few weeks earlier he had given a speech to new American citizens decrying Bolshevism and anarchism's threat to American institutions. He supported the suppression of functionally violent radical speech, and incitement to commit violent acts. He was known to dislike foreigners but was considered to be a fair judge.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The trial began on June 22, 1920. The prosecution presented several witnesses who put Vanzetti at the scene of crime. Their descriptions varied, especially with respect to the shape and length of Vanzetti's mustache. Physical evidence included a shotgun shell retrieved at the scene of the crime and several shells found on Vanzetti when he was arrested.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The defense produced 16 witnesses, all Italians from Plymouth, who testified that at the time of the attempted robbery they had bought eels from Vanzetti for Eastertide, in accordance with their traditions. Such details reinforced the difference between the Italians and the jurors. Some testified in imperfect English, others through an interpreter, whose inability to speak the same dialect of Italian as the witnesses hampered his effectiveness. On cross examination, the prosecution found it easy to make the witnesses appear confused about dates. A boy who testified admitted to rehearsing his testimony. "You learned it just like a piece at school?" the prosecutor asked. "Sure", he replied. The defense tried to rebut the eyewitnesses with testimony that Vanzetti always wore his mustache in a distinctive long style, but the prosecution rebutted this.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The defense case went badly and Vanzetti did not testify in his own defense. During the trial, he said that his lawyers had opposed putting him on the stand. That same year, defense attorney Vahey told the governor that Vanzetti had refused his advice to testify. Decades later, a lawyer who assisted Vahey in the defense said that the defense attorneys left the choice to Vanzetti, but warned him that it would be difficult to prevent the prosecution from using cross examination to challenge the credibility of his character based on his political beliefs. He said that Vanzetti chose not to testify after consulting with Sacco. Herbert B. Ehrmann, who later joined the defense team, wrote many years later that the dangers of putting Vanzetti on the stand were very real. Another legal analysis of the case faulted the defense for not offering more to the jury by letting Vanzetti testify, concluding that by his remaining silent it "left the jury to decide between the eyewitnesses and the alibi witness without his aid. In these circumstances a verdict of not guilty would have been very unusual". That analysis claimed that "no one could say that the case was closely tried or vigorously fought for the defendant".


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Vanzetti complained during his sentencing on April 9, 1927, for the Braintree crimes, that Vahey "sold me for thirty golden money like Judas sold Jesus Christ." He accused Vahey of having conspired with the prosecutor "to agitate still more the passion of the juror, the prejudice of the juror" towards "people of our principles, against the foreigner, against slackers."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: On July 1, 1920, the jury deliberated for five hours and returned guilty verdicts on both counts, armed robbery and first-degree murder. Before sentencing, Judge Thayer learned that during deliberations, the jury had tampered with the shotgun shells found on Vanzetti at the time of his arrest to determine if the shot they contained was of sufficient size to kill a man. Since that prejudiced the jury's verdict on the murder charge, Thayer declared that part a mistrial. On August 16, 1920, he sentenced Vanzetti on the charge of armed robbery to a term of 12 to 15 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed. An assessment of Thayer's conduct of the trial said "his stupid rulings as to the admissibility of conversations are about equally divided" between the two sides and thus provided no evidence of partiality.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Sacco and Vanzetti both denounced Thayer. Vanzetti wrote, "I will try to see Thayer death before his pronunciation of our sentence" and asked fellow anarchists for "revenge, revenge in our names and the names of our living and dead."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In 1927, advocates for Sacco and Vanzetti charged that this case was brought first because a conviction for the Bridgewater crimes would help convict him for the Braintree crimes, where evidence against him was weak. The prosecution countered that the timing was driven by the schedules of different courts that handled the cases. The defense raised only minor objections in an appeal that was not accepted. A few years later, Vahey joined Katzmann's law firm.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Sacco and Vanzetti went on trial for their lives in Dedham, Massachusetts, May 21, 1921, at Dedham, Norfolk County, for the Braintree robbery and murders. Webster Thayer again presided; he had asked to be assigned to the trial. Katzmann again prosecuted for the State. Vanzetti was represented by brothers Jeremiah and Thomas McAnraney. Sacco was represented by Fred H. Moore and William J. Callahan. The choice of Moore, a former attorney for the Industrial Workers of the World, proved a key mistake for the defense. A notorious radical from California, Moore quickly enraged Judge Thayer with his courtroom demeanor, often doffing his jacket and once, his shoes. Reporters covering the case were amazed to hear Judge Thayer, during a lunch recess, proclaim, "I'll show them that no long-haired anarchist from California can run this court!" and later, "You wait till I give my charge to the jury. I'll show them." Throughout the trial, Moore and Thayer clashed repeatedly over procedure and decorum.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Authorities anticipated a possible bomb attack and had the Dedham courtroom outfitted with heavy, sliding steel doors and cast-iron shutters that were painted to appear wooden. Each day during the trial, the courthouse was placed under heavy police security, and Sacco and Vanzetti were escorted to and from the courtroom by armed guards.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The Commonwealth relied on evidence that Sacco was absent from his work in a shoe factory on the day of the murders; that the defendants were in the neighborhood of the Braintree robbery-murder scene on the morning when it occurred, being identified as having been there seen separately and also together; that the Buick getaway car was also in the neighborhood and that Vanzetti was near and in it; that Sacco was seen near the scene of the murders before they occurred and also was seen to shoot Berardelli after Berardelli fell and that that shot caused his death; that used shell casings were left at the scene of the murders, some of which could have been found to have been discharged from a .32 pistol afterwards found on Sacco; that a cap was found at the scene of the murders, which witnesses identified as resembling one formerly worn by Sacco; and that both men were members of anarchist cells that espoused violence, including assassination. Among the more important witnesses called by the prosecution was salesman Carlos E. Goodridge, who stated that as the getaway car raced within twenty-five feet of him, one of the car's occupants, whom he identified as being Sacco, pointed a gun in his direction.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Both defendants offered alibis that were backed by several witnesses. Vanzetti testified that he had been selling fish at the time of the Braintree robbery. Sacco testified that he had been in Boston applying for a passport at the Italian consulate. He stated he had lunched in Boston's North End with several friends, each of whom testified on his behalf. Prior to the trial, Sacco's lawyer, Fred Moore, went to great lengths to contact the consulate employee whom Sacco said he had talked with on the afternoon of the crime. Once contacted in Italy, the clerk said he remembered Sacco because of the unusually large passport photo he presented. The clerk also remembered the date, April 15, 1920, but he refused to return to the United States to testify (a trip requiring two ship voyages), citing his ill health. Instead he executed a sworn deposition that was read aloud in court and quickly dismissed.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Much of the trial focused on material evidence, notably bullets, guns, and the cap. Prosecution witnesses testified that "Bullet III", the .32-caliber bullet that had fatally wounded Berardelli, was from a discontinued Winchester .32 Auto cartridge loading so obsolete that the only bullets similar to it that anyone could locate to make comparisons were those found in the cartridges in Sacco's pockets. Prosecutor Frederick Katzmann decided to participate in a forensic bullet examination using bullets test-fired from Sacco's .32 Colt Automatic after the defense arranged for such tests. Sacco, saying he had nothing to hide, had allowed his gun to be test-fired, with experts for both sides present, during the trial's second week. The prosecution matched bullets fired through the gun to those taken from one of the slain men.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In court, District Attorney Katzmann called two forensic gun expert witnesses, Capt. Charles Van Amburgh of Springfield Armory and Capt. William Proctor of the Massachusetts State Police, who testified that they believed that of the four bullets recovered from Berardelli's body, "Bullet III" – the fatal bullet – exhibited rifling marks consistent with those found on bullets fired from Sacco's .32 Colt Automatic pistol. In rebuttal, two defense forensic gun experts testified that "Bullet III" did not match any of the test bullets from Sacco's Colt. Capt. Proctor would later sign an affidavit stating that he could not positively identify Sacco's .32 Colt as the only pistol that could have fired "Bullet III". This meant that "Bullet III" could have been fired from any of the 300,000 .32 Colt Automatic pistols then in circulation. All witnesses to the shooting testified that they saw one gunman shoot Berardelli four times, yet the defense never questioned how only one of four bullets found in the deceased guard was identified as being fired from Sacco's Colt.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Vanzetti was being tried under Massachusetts' felony-murder rule, and the prosecution sought to implicate him in the Braintree robbery by the testimony of several witnesses: one testified that he was in the getaway car, and others who stated they saw Vanzetti in the vicinity of the Braintree factory around the time of the robbery. No direct evidence tied Vanzetti's .38 nickel-plated Harrington & Richardson five-shot revolver to the crime scene, except for the fact that it was identical in type and appearance to one owned by the slain guard Berardelli, which was missing from the crime scene. All six bullets recovered from the victims were .32 caliber, fired from at least two different automatic pistols.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The prosecution claimed Vanzetti's .38 revolver had originally belonged to the slain Berardelli, and that it had been taken from his body during the robbery. No one testified to seeing anyone take the gun, but Berardelli had an empty holster and no gun on him when he was found. Additionally, witnesses to the payroll shooting had described Berardelli as reaching for his gun on his hip when he was cut down by pistol fire from the robbers.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: District Attorney Katzmann pointed out that Vanzetti had lied at the time of his arrest, when making statements about the .38 revolver found in his possession. He claimed that the revolver was his own, and that he carried it for self-protection, yet he incorrectly described it to police as a six-shot revolver instead of a five-shot. Vanzetti also told police that he had purchased only one box of cartridges for the gun, all of the same make, yet his revolver was loaded with five .38 cartridges of varying brands. At the time of his arrest, Vanzetti also claimed that he had bought the gun at a store (but could not remember which one), and that it cost $18 or $19 (three times its actual market value). He lied about where he had obtained the .38 cartridges found in the revolver.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The prosecution traced the history of Berardelli's .38 Harrington & Richardson (H&R) revolver. Berardelli's wife testified that she and her husband dropped off the gun for repair at the Iver Johnson Co. of Boston a few weeks before the murder. According to the foreman of the Iver Johnson repair shop, Berardelli's revolver was given a repair tag with the number of 94765, and this number was recorded in the repair logbook with the statement "H. & R. revolver, .38-calibre, new hammer, repairing, half an hour". However, the shop books did not record the gun's serial number, and the caliber was apparently incorrectly labeled as .32 instead of .38-caliber. The shop foreman testified that a new spring and hammer were put into Berardelli's Harrington & Richardson revolver. The gun was claimed and the half-hour repair paid for, though the date and identity of the claimant were not recorded. After examining Vanzetti's .38 revolver, the foreman testified that Vanzetti's gun had a new replacement hammer in keeping with the repair performed on Berardelli's revolver. The foreman explained that the shop was always kept busy repairing 20 to 30 revolvers per day, which made it very hard to remember individual guns or keep reliable records of when they were picked up by their owners. But, he said that unclaimed guns were sold by Iver Johnson at the end of each year, and the shop had no record of an unclaimed gun sale of Berardelli's revolver. To reinforce the conclusion that Berardelli had reclaimed his revolver from the repair shop, the prosecution called a witness who testified that he had seen Berardelli in possession of a .38 nickel-plated revolver the Saturday night before the Braintree robbery.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: After hearing testimony from the repair shop employee that "the repair shop had no record of Berardelli picking up the gun, the gun was not in the shop nor had it been sold", the defense put Vanzetti on the stand where he testified that "he had actually bought the gun several months earlier from fellow anarchist Luigi Falzini for five dollars" – in contradiction to what he had told police upon his arrest. This was corroborated by Luigi Falzini (Falsini), a friend of Vanzetti's and a fellow Galleanist, who stated that, after buying the .38 revolver from one Riccardo Orciani, he sold it to Vanzetti. The defense also called two expert witnesses, a Mr. Burns and a Mr. Fitzgerald, who each testified that no new spring and hammer had ever been installed in the revolver found in Vanzetti's possession.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The District Attorney's final piece of material evidence was a flop-eared cap claimed to have been Sacco's. Sacco tried the cap on in court and, according to two newspaper sketch artists who ran cartoons the next day, it was too small, sitting high on his head. But Katzmann insisted the cap fitted Sacco and, noting a hole in the back where Sacco had hung the cap on a nail each day, continued to refer to it as his, and in denying later appeals, Judge Thayer often cited the cap as material evidence. During the 1927 Lowell Commission investigation, however, Braintree's Police Chief admitted that he had torn the cap open upon finding it at the crime scene a full day after the murders. Doubting the cap was Sacco's, the chief told the commission it could not have lain in the street "for thirty hours with the State Police, the local police, and two or three thousand people there."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Controversy clouded the prosecution witnesses who identified Sacco as having been at the scene of the crime. One, a bookkeeper named Mary Splaine, precisely described Sacco as the man she saw firing from the getaway car. From Felix Frankfurter's account from "The Atlantic Monthly" article:


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Viewing the scene from a distance of from sixty to eighty feet, she saw a man previously unknown to her in a car traveling at the rate of from fifteen to eighteen miles per hour, and she saw him only for a distance of about thirty feet—that is to say, for from one and a half to three seconds.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Yet cross examination revealed that Splaine was unable to identify Sacco at the inquest but had recall of great details of Sacco's appearance over a year later. While a few others singled out Sacco or Vanzetti as the men they had seen at the scene of the crime, far more witnesses, both prosecution and defense, could not identify them.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The defendants' radical politics may have played a role in the verdict. Judge Thayer, though a sworn enemy of anarchists, warned the defense against bringing anarchism into the trial. Yet defense attorney Fred Moore felt he had to call both Sacco and Vanzetti as witnesses to let them explain why they were fully armed when arrested. Both men testified that they had been rounding up radical literature when apprehended, and that they had feared another government deportation raid. Yet both hurt their case with rambling discourses on radical politics that the prosecution mocked. The prosecution also brought out that both men had fled the draft by going to Mexico in 1917.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: On July 21, 1921, the jury deliberated for three hours, broke for dinner, and then returned the guilty verdicts. Supporters later insisted that Sacco and Vanzetti had been convicted for their anarchist views, yet every juror insisted that anarchism had played no part in their decision to convict the two men. At that time, a first-degree murder conviction in Massachusetts was punishable by death. Sacco and Vanzetti were bound for the electric chair unless the defense could find new evidence.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The verdicts and the likelihood of death sentences immediately roused international opinion. Demonstrations were held in 60 Italian cities and a flood of mail was sent to the American embassy in Paris. Demonstrations followed in a number of Latin American cities. Anatole France, veteran of the campaign for Alfred Dreyfus and recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote an "Appeal to the American People": "The death of Sacco and Vanzetti will make martyrs of them and cover you with shame. You are a great people. You ought to be a just people."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In 1921, most of the nation had not yet heard of Sacco and Vanzetti. Brief mention of the conviction appeared on page three of the New York Times. Defense attorney Moore radicalized and politicized the process by discussing Sacco and Vanzetti's anarchist beliefs, attempting to suggest that they were prosecuted primarily for their political beliefs and the trial was part of a government plan to stop the anarchist movement in the United States. His efforts helped stir up support but were so costly that he was eventually dismissed from the defense team.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee was formed on May 9, 1920, immediately following the arrests, by a group of fellow anarchists, headed by Vanzetti's 23-year-old friend Aldino Felicani. Over the next seven years, it raised $300,000. Defense attorney Fred Moore drew on its funds for his investigations. Differences arose when Moore tried to determine who had committed the Braintree crimes over objections from anarchists that he was doing the government's work. After the Committee hired William G. Thompson to manage the legal defense, he objected to its propaganda efforts.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: A Defense Committee publicist wrote an article about the first trial that was published in "The New Republic". In the winter of 1920–1921, the Defense Committee sent stories to labor union publications every week. It produced pamphlets with titles like "Fangs at Labor's Throat", sometimes printing thousands of copies. It sent speakers to Italian communities in factory towns and mining camps. The Committee eventually added staff from outside the anarchist movement, notably Mary Donovan, who had experience as a labor leader and Sinn Féin organizer. In 1927, she and Felicani together recruited Gardner Jackson, a "Boston Globe" reporter from a wealthy family, to manage publicity and serve as a mediator between the Committee's anarchists and the growing number of supporters with more liberal political views, who included socialites, lawyers, and intellectuals.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Jackson bridged the gap between the radicals and the social elite so well that Sacco thanked him a few weeks before his execution:


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: We are one heart, but unfortunately we represent two different class. ... But, whenever the heart of one of the upper class join with the exploited workers for the struggle of the right in the human feeling is the feel of an spontaneous attraction and brotherly love to one another.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The noted American author John Dos Passos joined the committee and wrote its 127-page official review of the case: "Facing the Chair: Story of Americanization of Two Foreignborn Workmen". Dos Passos concluded it "barely possible" that Sacco might have committed murder as part of a class war, but that the soft-hearted Vanzetti was clearly innocent. "Nobody in his right mind who was planning such a crime would take a man like that along," Dos Passos wrote of Vanzetti. After the executions, the Committee continued its work, helping to gather material that eventually appeared as "The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti".


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Multiple separate motions for a new trial were denied by Judge Thayer. One motion, the so-called Hamilton-Proctor motion, involved the forensic ballistic evidence presented by the expert witnesses for the prosecution and defense. The prosecution's firearms expert, Charles Van Amburgh, had re-examined the evidence in preparation for the motion. By 1923, bullet-comparison technology had improved somewhat, and Van Amburgh submitted photos of the bullets fired from Sacco's .32 Colt in support of the argument that they matched the bullet that killed Berardelli. In response, the controversial self-proclaimed "firearms expert" for the defense, Albert H. Hamilton, conducted an in-court demonstration involving two brand new Colt .32-caliber automatic pistols belonging to Hamilton, along with Sacco's .32 Colt of the same make and caliber. In front of Judge Thayer and the lawyers for both sides, Hamilton disassembled all three pistols and placed the major component parts – barrel, barrel bushing, recoil spring, frame, slide, and magazine – into three piles on the table before him. He explained the functions of each part and began to demonstrate how each was interchangeable, in the process intermingling the parts of all three pistols. Judge Thayer stopped Hamilton and demanded that he reassemble Sacco's pistol with its proper parts.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Other motions focused on the jury foreman and a prosecution ballistics expert. In 1923, the defense filed an affidavit from a friend of the jury foreman, who swore that prior to the trial, the jury foreman had allegedly said of Sacco and Vanzetti, "Damn them, they ought to hang them anyway!" That same year, the defense read to the court an affidavit by Captain William Proctor (who had died shortly after conclusion of the trial) in which Proctor stated that he could not say that "Bullet III" was fired by Sacco's .32 Colt pistol. At the conclusion of the appeal hearings, Thayer denied all motions for a new trial on October 1, 1924.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Several months later, in February 1924, Judge Thayer asked one of the firearms experts for the prosecution, Capt. Charles Van Amburgh, to reinspect Sacco's Colt and determine its condition. With District Attorney Katzmann present, Van Amburgh took the gun from the clerk and started to take it apart. Van Amburgh quickly noticed that the barrel to Sacco's gun was brand new, being still covered in the manufacturer's protective rust preventative. Judge Thayer began private hearings to determine who had tampered with the evidence by switching the barrel on Sacco's gun. During three weeks of hearings, Albert Hamilton and Captain Van Amburgh squared off, challenging each other's authority. Testimony suggested that Sacco's gun had been treated with little care, and frequently disassembled for inspection. New defense attorney William Thompson insisted that no one on his side could have switched the barrels "unless they wanted to run their necks into a noose." Albert Hamilton swore he had only taken the gun apart while being watched by Judge Thayer. Judge Thayer made no finding as to who had switched the .32 Colt barrels, but ordered the rusty barrel returned to Sacco's Colt. After the hearing concluded, unannounced to Judge Thayer, Captain Van Amburgh took both Sacco's and Vanzetti's guns, along with the bullets and shells involved in the crime to his home where he kept them until a "Boston Globe" exposé revealed the misappropriation in 1960. Meanwhile, Van Amburgh bolstered his own credentials by writing an article on the case for True Detective Mysteries. The 1935 article charged that prior to the discovery of the gun barrel switch, Albert Hamilton had tried to walk out of the courtroom with Sacco's gun but was stopped by Judge Thayer. Although several historians of the case, including Francis Russell, have reported this story as factual, nowhere in transcripts of the private hearing on the gun barrel switch was this incident ever mentioned. The same year the True Detective article was published, a study of ballistics in the case concluded, "what might have been almost indubitable evidence was in fact rendered more than useless by the bungling of the experts."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The defense appealed Thayer's denial of their motions to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), the highest level of the state's judicial system. Both sides presented arguments to its five judges on January 11–13, 1926. The SJC returned a unanimous ruling on May 12, 1926, upholding Judge Thayer's decisions. The Court did not have the authority to review the trial record as a whole or to judge the fairness of the case. Instead, the judges considered only whether Thayer had abused his discretion in the course of the trial. Thayer later claimed that the SJC had "approved" the verdicts, which advocates for the defendants protested as a misinterpretation of the Court's ruling, which only found "no error" in his individual rulings.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In November 1925, Celestino Medeiros, an ex-convict awaiting trial for murder, confessed to committing the Braintree crimes. He absolved Sacco and Vanzetti of participation. In May, once the SJC had denied their appeal and Medeiros was convicted, the defense investigated the details of Medeiros' story. Police interviews led them to the Morelli gang based in Providence, Rhode Island. They developed an alternative theory of the crime based on the gang's history of shoe-factory robberies, connections to a car like that used in Braintree, and other details. Gang leader Joe Morelli bore a striking resemblance to Sacco.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The defense filed a motion for a new trial based on the Medeiros confession on May 26, 1926. In support of their motion they included 64 affidavits. The prosecution countered with 26 affidavits. When Thayer heard arguments from September 13 to 17, 1926, the defense, along with their Medeiros-Morelli theory of the crime, charged that the U.S. Justice Department was aiding the prosecution by withholding information obtained in its own investigation of the case. Attorney William Thompson made an explicitly political attack: "A government which has come to value its own secrets more than it does the lives of its citizens has become a tyranny, whether you call it a republic, a monarchy, or anything else!" Judge Thayer denied this motion for a new trial on October 23, 1926. After arguing against the credibility of Medeiros, he addressed the defense claims against the federal government, saying the defense was suffering from "a new type of disease, ... a belief in the existence of something which in fact and truth has no such existence."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Three days later, the "Boston Herald" responded to Thayer's decision by reversing its longstanding position and calling for a new trial. Its editorial, "", earned its author a Pulitzer Prize. No other newspapers followed suit.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The defense promptly appealed again to the Supreme Judicial Court and presented their arguments on January 27 and 28, 1927. While the appeal was under consideration, Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter published an article in the "Atlantic Monthly" arguing for a retrial. He noted that the SJC had already taken a very narrow view of its authority when considering the first appeal, and called upon the court to review the entire record of the case. He called their attention to Thayer's lengthy statement that accompanied his denial of the Medeiros appeal, describing it as "a farrago of misquotations, misrepresentations, suppressions, and mutilations," "honeycombed with demonstrable errors."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: At the same time, Major Calvin Goddard was a ballistics expert who had helped pioneer the use of the comparison microscope in forensic ballistic research. He offered to conduct an independent examination of the gun and bullet forensic evidence by using techniques that he had developed for use with the comparison microscope. Goddard first offered to conduct a new forensic examination for the defense, which rejected it, and then to the prosecution, which accepted his offer. Using the comparison microscope, Goddard compared "Bullet III" and a .32 Auto shell casing found at the Braintree shooting with that of several .32 Auto test cartridges fired from Sacco's .32 Colt automatic pistol. Goddard concluded that not only did "Bullet III" match the rifling marks found on the barrel of Sacco's .32 Colt pistol, but that scratches made by the firing pin of Sacco's .32 Colt on the primers of spent shell casings test-fired from Sacco's Colt matched those found on the primer of a spent shell casing recovered at the Braintree murder scene. More sophisticated comparative examinations in 1935, 1961, and 1983 each reconfirmed the opinion that the bullet the prosecution said killed Berardelli and one of the cartridge cases introduced into evidence were fired in Sacco's .32 Colt automatic. However, in his book on new evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti case, historian David E. Kaiser wrote that Bullet III and its shell casing, as presented, had been substituted by the prosecution and were not genuinely from the scene.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The Supreme Judicial Court denied the Medeiros appeal on April 5, 1927. Summarizing the decision, "The New York Times" said that the SJC had determined that "the judge had a right to rule as he did" but that the SJC "did not deny the validity of the new evidence." The SJC also said: "It is not imperative that a new trial be granted even though evidence is newly discovered and, if presented to a jury, would justify a different verdict."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In 1924, referring to his denial of motions for a new trial, Judge Thayer confronted a Massachusetts lawyer: "Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day?" the judge said. "I guess that will hold them for a while! Let them go and see now what they can get out of the Supreme Court!" The outburst remained a secret until 1927 when its release fueled the arguments of Sacco and Vanzetti's defenders. The "New York World" attacked Thayer as "an agitated little man looking for publicity and utterly impervious to the ethical standards one has the right to expect of a man presiding in a capital case."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Many socialists and intellectuals campaigned for a retrial without success. John Dos Passos came to Boston to cover the case as a journalist, stayed to author a pamphlet called "Facing the Chair", and was arrested in a demonstration on August 10, 1927, along with writer Dorothy Parker, trade union organizer and Socialist Party leader Powers Hapgood and activist Catharine Sargent Huntington. After being arrested while picketing the State House, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay pleaded her case to the governor in person and then wrote an appeal: "I cry to you with a million voices: answer our doubt ... There is need in Massachusetts of a great man tonight."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Others who wrote to Fuller or signed petitions included Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. The president of the American Federation of Labor cited "the long period of time intervening between the commission of the crime and the final decision of the Court" as well as "the mental and physical anguish which Sacco and Vanzetti must have undergone during the past seven years" in a telegram to the governor.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the target of two anarchist assassination attempts, quietly made inquiries through diplomatic channels and was prepared to ask Governor Fuller to commute the sentences if it appeared his request would be granted.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In 1926, a bomb presumed to be the work of anarchists destroyed the house of Samuel Johnson, the brother of Simon Johnson and garage owner that called police the night of Sacco and Vanzetti's arrest.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In August 1927, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) called for a three-day nationwide walkout to protest the pending executions. The most notable response came in the Walsenburg coal district of Colorado, where 1,132 out of 1,167 miners participated in the walkout. It led to the Colorado coal strike of 1927.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: For their part, Sacco and Vanzetti seemed to alternate between moods of defiance, vengeance, resignation, and despair. The June 1926 issue of "Protesta Umana," published by their Defense Committee, carried an article signed by Sacco and Vanzetti that appealed for retaliation by their colleagues. In the article, Vanzetti wrote, "I will try to see Thayer death before his pronunciation of our sentence," and asked fellow anarchists for "revenge, revenge in our names and the names of our living and dead." The article made a reference to "La Salute è in voi!", the title of Galleani's bomb-making manual.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Both wrote dozens of letters asserting their innocence, insisting they had been framed because they were anarchists. Their conduct in prison consistently impressed guards and wardens. In 1927, the Dedham jail chaplain wrote to the head of an investigatory commission that he had seen no evidence of guilt or remorse on Sacco's part. Vanzetti impressed fellow prisoners at Charlestown State Prison as a bookish intellectual, incapable of committing any violent crime. Novelist John Dos Passos, who visited both men in jail, observed of Vanzetti, "nobody in his right mind who was planning such a crime would take a man like that along." Vanzetti developed his command of English to such a degree that journalist Murray Kempton later described him as "the greatest writer of English in our century to learn his craft, do his work, and die all in the space of seven years."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: While Sacco was in the Norfolk County Jail, his seven-year-old son, Dante, would sometimes stand on the sidewalk outside the jail and play catch with his father by throwing a ball over the wall.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: On April 9, 1927, Judge Thayer heard final statements from Sacco and Vanzetti. In a lengthy speech Vanzetti said:


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: I would not wish to a dog or to a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth, I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian and indeed I am an Italian ... if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Thayer declared that the responsibility for the conviction rested solely with the jury's determination of guilt. "The Court has absolutely nothing to do with that question." He sentenced each of them to "suffer the punishment of death by the passage of a current of electricity through your body" during the week beginning July 10. He twice postponed the execution date while the governor considered requests for clemency.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In response to public protests that greeted the sentencing, Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller faced last-minute appeals to grant clemency to Sacco and Vanzetti. On June 1, 1927, he appointed an Advisory Committee of three: President Abbott Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, President Samuel Wesley Stratton of MIT, and Probate Judge Robert Grant. They were presented with the task of reviewing the trial to determine whether it had been fair. Lowell's appointment was generally well received, for though he had controversy in his past, he had also at times demonstrated an independent streak. The defense attorneys considered resigning when they determined that the Committee was biased against the defendants, but some of the defendants' most prominent supporters, including Harvard Law Professor Felix Frankfurter and Judge Julian W. Mack of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, persuaded them to stay because Lowell "was not entirely hopeless."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: One of the defense attorneys, though ultimately very critical of the Committee's work, thought the Committee members were not really capable of the task the Governor set for them:


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: No member of the Committee had the essential sophistication that comes with experience in the trial of criminal cases. ... The high positions in the community held by the members of the Committee obscured the fact that they were not really qualified to perform the difficult task assigned to them. He also thought that the Committee, particularly Lowell, imagined it could use its fresh and more powerful analytical abilities to outperform the efforts of those who had worked on the case for years, even finding evidence of guilt that professional prosecutors had discarded.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Grant was another establishment figure, a probate court judge from 1893 to 1923 and an Overseer of Harvard University from 1896 to 1921, and the author of a dozen popular novels. Some criticized Grant's appointment to the Committee, with one defense lawyer saying he "had a black-tie class concept of life around him," but Harold Laski in a conversation at the time found him "moderate." Others cited evidence of xenophobia in some of his novels, references to "riff-raff" and a variety of racial slurs. His biographer allows that he was "not a good choice," not a legal scholar, and handicapped by age. Stratton, the one member who was not a "Boston Brahmin," maintained the lowest public profile of the three and hardly spoke during its hearings.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In their earlier appeals, the defense was limited to the trial record. The Governor's Committee, however, was not a judicial proceeding, so Judge Thayer's comments outside the courtroom could be used to demonstrate his bias. Once Thayer told reporters that "No long-haired anarchist from California can run this court!" According to the affidavits of eyewitnesses, Thayer also lectured members of his clubs, calling Sacco and Vanzetti "Bolsheviki!" and saying he would "get them good and proper". During the Dedham trial's first week, Thayer said to reporters: "Did you ever see a case in which so many leaflets and circulars have been spread ... saying people couldn't get a fair trial in Massachusetts? You wait till I give my charge to the jury, I'll show them!" In 1924, Thayer confronted a Massachusetts lawyer at Dartmouth, his "alma mater", and said: "Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day. I guess that will hold them for a while. ... Let them go to the Supreme Court now and see what they can get out of them." The Committee knew that, following the verdict, "Boston Globe" reporter Frank Sibley, who had covered the trial, wrote a protest to the Massachusetts attorney general condemning Thayer's blatant bias. Thayer's behavior both inside the courtroom and outside of it had become a public issue, with the "New York World" attacking Thayer as "an agitated little man looking for publicity and utterly impervious to the ethical standards one has the right to expect of a man presiding in a capital case."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: On July 12–13, 1927, following testimony by the defense firearms expert Albert H. Hamilton before the Committee, the Assistant District Attorney for Massachusetts, Dudley P. Ranney, took the opportunity to cross-examine Hamilton. He submitted affidavits questioning Hamilton's credentials as well as his performance during the New York trial of Charles Stielow, in which Hamilton's testimony linking rifling marks to a bullet used to kill the victim nearly sent an innocent man to the electric chair. The Committee also heard from Braintree's police chief who told them he had found the cap on Pearl Street, allegedly dropped by Sacco during the crime, a full 24-hours after the getaway car had fled the scene. The chief doubted the cap belonged to Sacco and called the whole trial a contest "to see who could tell the biggest lies."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: After two weeks of hearing witnesses and reviewing evidence, the Committee determined that the trial had been fair and a new trial was not warranted. They assessed the charges against Thayer as well. Their criticism, using words provided by Judge Grant, was direct: "He ought not to have talked about the case off the bench, and doing so was a grave breach of judicial decorum." But they also found some of the charges about his statements unbelievable or exaggerated, and they determined that anything he might have said had no impact on the trial. The panel's reading of the trial transcript convinced them that Thayer "tried to be scrupulously fair." The Committee also reported that the trial jurors were almost unanimous in praising Thayer's conduct of the trial.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: A defense attorney later noted ruefully that the release of the Committee's report "abruptly stilled the burgeoning doubts among the leaders of opinion in New England." Supporters of the convicted men denounced the Committee. Harold Laski told Holmes that the Committee's work showed that Lowell's "loyalty to his class ... transcended his ideas of logic and justice."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Defense attorneys William G. Thompson and Herbert B. Ehrmann stepped down from the case in August 1927 and were replaced by Arthur D. Hill.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The executions were scheduled for midnight between August 22 and 23, 1927. On August 15, a bomb exploded at the home of one of the Dedham jurors. On Sunday, August 21, more than 20,000 protesters assembled on Boston Common.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Sacco and Vanzetti awaited execution in their cells at Charlestown State Prison, and both men refused a priest several times on their last day, as they were atheists. Their attorney William Thompson asked Vanzetti to make a statement opposing violent retaliation for his death and they discussed forgiving one's enemies. Thompson also asked Vanzetti to swear to his and Sacco's innocence one last time, and Vanzetti did. Celestino Medeiros, whose execution had been delayed in case his testimony was required at another trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, was executed first. Sacco was next and walked quietly to the electric chair, then shouted "Farewell, mother." Vanzetti, in his final moments, shook hands with guards and thanked them for their kind treatment, read a statement proclaiming his innocence, and finally said, "I wish to forgive some people for what they are now doing to me." Following the executions, death masks were made of the men.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Violent demonstrations swept through many cities the next day, including Geneva, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. In South America wildcat strikes closed factories. Three died in Germany, and protesters in Johannesburg burned an American flag outside the American embassy. It has been alleged that some of these activities were organized by the Communist Party.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: At Langone Funeral Home in Boston's North End, more than 10,000 mourners viewed Sacco and Vanzetti in open caskets over two days. At the funeral parlor, a wreath over the caskets announced "In attesa l'ora della vendetta" (Awaiting the hour of vengeance). On Sunday, August 28, a two-hour funeral procession bearing huge floral tributes moved through the city. Thousands of marchers took part in the procession, and over 200,000 came out to watch. Police blocked the route, which passed the State House, and at one point mourners and the police clashed. The hearses reached Forest Hills Cemetery where, after a brief eulogy, the bodies were cremated. The "Boston Globe" called it "one of the most tremendous funerals of modern times."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Will H. Hays, head of the motion picture industry's umbrella organization, ordered all film of the funeral procession destroyed.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Sacco's ashes were sent to Torremaggiore, the town of his birth, where they are interred at the base of a monument erected in 1998. Vanzetti's ashes were buried with his mother in Villafalletto.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, one of the most vocal supporters of Sacco and Vanzetti in Argentina, bombed the American embassy in Buenos Aires a few hours after the two men were sentenced to death. A few days after the executions, Sacco's widow thanked Di Giovanni by letter for his support and added that the director of the tobacco firm "Combinados" had offered to produce a cigarette brand named "Sacco & Vanzetti". On November 26, 1927, Di Giovanni and others bombed a Combinados tobacco shop. On December 24, 1927, Di Giovanni blew up the headquarters of The National City Bank of New York and of the Bank of Boston in Buenos Aires in apparent protest of the execution. In December 1928, Di Giovanni and others failed in an attempt to bomb the train in which President-elect Herbert Hoover was traveling during his visit to Argentina.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Three months later, bombs exploded in the New York City Subway, in a Philadelphia church, and at the home of the mayor of Baltimore. The house of one of the jurors in the Dedham trial was bombed, throwing him and his family from their beds. On May 18, 1928, a bomb destroyed the front porch of the home of executioner Robert Elliott. As late as 1932, Judge Thayer's home was wrecked and his wife and housekeeper were injured in a bomb blast. Afterward, Thayer lived permanently at his club in Boston, guarded 24 hours a day until his death on April 18, 1933.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In October 1927, H. G. Wells wrote an essay that discussed the case at length. He called it "a case like the Dreyfus case, by which the soul of a people is tested and displayed." He felt that Americans failed to understand what about the case roused European opinion:


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: The guilt or innocence of these two Italians is not the issue that has excited the opinion of the world. Possibly they were actual murderers, and still more possibly they knew more than they would admit about the crime. ... Europe is not "retrying" Sacco and Vanzetti or anything of the sort. It is saying what it thinks of Judge Thayer. Executing political opponents as political opponents after the fashion of Mussolini and Moscow we can understand, or bandits as bandits; but this business of trying and executing murderers as Reds, or Reds as murderers, seems to be a new and very frightening line for the courts of a State in the most powerful and civilized Union on earth to pursue.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: He used the case to complain that Americans were too sensitive to foreign criticism: "One can scarcely let a sentence that is not highly flattering glance across the Atlantic without some American blowing up."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: In 1928, Upton Sinclair published his novel "Boston", an indictment of the American judicial system. He explored Vanzetti's life and writings, as its focus, and mixed fictional characters with historical participants in the trials. Though his portrait of Vanzetti was entirely sympathetic, Sinclair disappointed advocates for the defense by failing to absolve Sacco and Vanzetti of the crimes, however much he argued that their trial had been unjust. Years later, he explained: "Some of the things I told displeased the fanatical believers; but having portrayed the aristocrats as they were, I had to do the same thing for the anarchists." While doing research for the book, Sinclair was told confidentially by Sacco and Vanzetti's former lawyer Fred H. Moore that the two were guilty and that he (Moore) had supplied them with fake alibis; Sinclair was inclined to believe that that was, indeed, the case, and later referred to this as an "ethical problem", but he did not include the information about the conversation with Moore in his book.


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: When the letters Sacco and Vanzetti wrote appeared in print in 1928, journalist Walter Lippmann commented: "If Sacco and Vanzetti were professional bandits, then historians and biographers who attempt to deduce character from personal documents might as well shut up shop. By every test that I know of for judging character, these are the letters of innocent men." On January 3, 1929, as Gov. Fuller left the inauguration of his successor, he found a copy of the "Letters" thrust at him by someone in the crowd. He knocked it to the ground "with an exclamation of contempt."


title: Sacco and Vanzetti

text: Intellectual and literary supporters of Sacco and Vanzetti continued to speak out. In 1936, on the day when Harvard celebrated its 300th anniversary, 28 Harvard alumni issued a statement attacking the University's retired President Lowell for his role on the Governor's Advisory Committee in 1927. They included Heywood Broun, Malcolm Cowley, Granville Hicks, and John Dos Passos.