Sacco and Vanzetti - Motions For A New Trial

Motions For A New Trial

Judge Thayer held hearings on five separate motions for a new trial for Sacco and Vanzetti in October and November 1923. Defense attorney Fred Moore presented affidavits and testimony by three prosecution witnesses to the effect that they had been coerced into identifying Sacco at the scene of the crime. However, when confronted by District Attorney Katzmann, the three witnesses denied being subjected to any prosecution coercion. One of them, Lola Andrews, told authorities that she was forced to sign an affidavit stating she had wrongfully identified Sacco and Vanzetti, but signed a counter-affidavit the following day. Another, Lewis Pelser, described how he had submitted to alleged prosecutorial coercion while drunk and signed a counter-affidavit shortly thereafter.

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 then 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.

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 hearings, Thayer denied all motions for a new trial on October 1, 1924.

Several months later, in February, 1925, 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. At this time Van Amburgh realized 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. After three weeks, the defense expert "Doctor" Hamilton admitted that the new .32 Colt barrel must have come from one of his pistols. Hamilton insisted, however, that he had not made the switch, stating that someone associated with the prosecution must have interchanged the barrels on the three guns. District Attorney Katzmann alleged that Hamilton had made the substitution with the idea of making the discovery himself for purposes of demanding a new trial. Judge Thayer made no finding as to who had actually switched the .32 Colt barrels, but merely held that the singular used and rusty barrel now fitted to one of Hamilton's new .32 Colt pistols was in fact was the barrel from Sacco's .32 Colt. The court ordered the rusty barrel returned to Sacco's Colt.