report
date: label: date made
content: 1983
notes: label: Description
content: The trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for the 1920 murder of Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, became an international cause célèbre. The accused were both Italian immigrants and anarchists, which impacted their trial and subsequent execution on August 23, 1927. Fifty years later, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis memorialized the day of their deaths and encouraged people “to reflect upon these tragic events, and draw from their historic lessons the resolve to prevent the forces of intolerance, fear, and hatred from ever again uniting to overcome the rationality, wisdom, and fairness to which our legal system aspires.”
label: Description
content: The firearms evidence used in this case is shrouded in controversy. Of critical import were the guns and ammunition that were purportedly collected from Sacco and Vanzetti at the time of their arrest, six bullets connected with the bodies of the victims, and four shells reported to be collected from the scene of the crime by a third party. At the 1921 trial, warring firearms experts made their case as to whether the only bullet that could potentially be linked to Sacco’s pistol—often called the Mortal Bullet or Bullet III—did indeed come from that weapon and if Vanzetti’s revolver could be convincingly linked, via evidence of repairs, to the sidearm removed from Berardelli during the robbery. Additional experts were consulted during the appeals process and just before the accused were executed. But that was not the end of the interest in this evidence. More tests and examinations took place in 1944 and 1961.
label: Description
content: This report, dated 11 October 1983, is the most recent documented expert examination of the firearm evidence from the Sacco and Vanzetti case. The study was funded by Westinghouse Broadcasting and Cable Inc. to support the filming of a television program. The panel of experts was chosen by Dr. Henry C. Lee, a criminalist with the Connecticut State Police Forensic Laboratory, and included Anthony L. Paul, Marshall K. Robinson, and George R. Wilson. All three were members of the Association of Firearms & Toolmark Examiners (AFTE). Equipment used included comparison microscopes, stereo microscopes, and micro-photography tools. The comparison microscope was initially used to examine these materials in 1927 by Calvin Goddard, one of the people who popularized its use in firearms comparison.
label: Description
content: This 1983 report stated that the Mortal Bullet (exhibit 18) was “identified as having been fired from Exhibit # 28,” which was the pistol purportedly recovered from Sacco. And that the committee was “unable to draw definite conclusions due to the age and condition” of revolver recovered from Vanzetti. Additional conclusions were drawn about the other pieces of evidence and were reported in the AFTE Journal in 1985. Only six volumes of the original report with the color evidence photographs were bound.
label: Description
content: While the report sought to be “comprehensive, thorough, objective and final,” the debate over these objects persists as do theories about evidence planting and misconduct on the part of law enforcement in the 1920s. Also persistent is the notion that the latest scientific tools will offer new insights, if not settle these questions once and for all—which is why the evidence keeps getting reexamined. The story of this work, starting in the 1920s to the 1980s (and likely into the future), is therefore a study of the development of tools and methods associated with forensic firearm examination.
label: Description
content: References
label: Description
content: Temkin, M., The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, Yale University Press, 2011.
label: Description
content: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Sacco & Vanzetti: Proclamation, https://www.mass.gov/info-details/sacco-vanzetti-proclamation (accessed 19 May 2023).
label: Description
content: Starrs, J. E., “Once More Unto the Breech: The Firearms Evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti Case Revisited: Part I,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, v.31, no. 2, 1986, p. 630-654.
label: Description
content: Starrs, J. E., “Once More Unto the Breech: The Firearms Evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti Case Revisited: Part II,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, v.31, no. 3, 1986, p. 1050-1078.
label: Description
content: Hatcher, J. S., Jury, F. J., and Weller, J., Firearms Investigation, Identification, and Evidence, The Stackpole Company, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1957, p. 463-6.
label: Description
content: Lee, H. C., Paul, A. L., Robinson, M. K. Wilson, G. R., “Examination of Firearm Related Evidence: The Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Case,” AFTE Journal, v. 17, no. 3, 1985, p. 13-42.
label: Description
content: Young, W., Postmortem: New Evidence in the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti, University of Massachusetts Press, 1985.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Marshall Keith Robinson
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2023.0091.01
label: catalog number
content: 2023.0091.01
label: accession number
content: 2023.0091
objectType: label: Object Name
content: report
label: Object Type
content: Report
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 7/16 in x 8 1/4 in x 1 1/2 in; 26.51125 cm x 20.955 cm x 3.81 cm