Chapter I
For more than six years the Sacco-Vanzetti case has been before the courts of Massachusetts. Such extraordinary delay, in a state where ordinarily murder trials are promptly dispatched, in itself challenges attention. A long succession of disclosures has aroused interest far beyond the boundaries of Massachusetts and even of the United States, until the case has become one of those rare causes célèbres which are of international concern. My aim is to give in brief compass an accurate résumé of the facts of the case from its earliest stages to its present posture. The following account is based upon the record of the successive court proceedings through which the case has gone, with such references to extrinsic facts as are necessary for understanding what transpired in court. Obviously, to tell the story within limited space requires drastic compression. The necessary selection of material has been guided by canons of relevance and fairness familiar to every lawyer called upon to make a disinterested summary of the record of a protracted trial. The entire record, spread over many thousand pages, is accessible to anyone who desires to examine for himself the ground herein traveled.
At about three o'clock in the afternoon of April 15, 1920, Parmenter, a paymaster, and Berardelli, his
