Sacco and Vanzetti

Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants. When they came to America, they disliked the oppression capitalism and the wealthy put on the working class, so they joined a group of anarchists. However at the time there was the "Red Scare", which was the fear of anarchists and revolution, and "Red Raids",  which were where the government was deporting people who were accused of being anarchists. In Bridgewater Massachusetts in 1919 there was a failed robbery attempt, and in Braintree Massachusetts in 1920 there was a double homicide and robbery at the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company. Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of committing the crimes, and lost the court battle and were sentenced to death by electrocution. Even today, there is a lot of controversy over whether or not Sacco and Vanzetti were really guilty. The local police believed they were guilty because the found the two with weapons, they lied about being anarchists, and at the time they were arrested they had “consciousness of guilt”. Also, despite the fact that Vanzetti had an alibi, Sacco did not have an alibi and the witnesses supporting Vanzetti's alibi were all close to Vanzetti. The two also seemed guilty because they were identified by eye-witnesses as looking similar to the culprits. The State police believed that they were innocent because the style of the crimes didn't match the style of anarchist violence. Also, the judge and prosecutor were both known to be biased anti-anarchist and they used law tactics to make sure Sacco and Vanzetti unfairly got harsher punishments. This is seen by the fact that the prosecution corruptly tried to tie the guns found on the two to the murders by making a false accusation that the gun on Vanzetti was the guard's gun even though they knew that the calibers were different. Also, the prosecutor selected people to made a jury that was ok with the two being sentenced to the death penalty, showing how the prosecution was bent on having the two men killed. It is also argued that the two were innocent because they found a Portuguese American that was a part of the crime and looked like Sacco, so maybe the eye witnesses mistook Sacco for being the Portuguese man. Also it is argued that Sacco and Vanzetti only lied about being anarchists to avoid deportation because of the red scare. Personally I believe that Sacco and Vanzetti were both innocent because Vanzetti had a strong alibi and Sacco seemed like although he didn’t have an alibi he had a family and thus would have felt like he had more to lose from committing a crime like this. I also agree that the robbery didn't align with the usual crimes of anarchists because anarchists commit crimes to try to ignite revolution and political change, not to just steal money. Also the prosecution was corrupt and bend on having them killed simply because of their involvement in anarchism and used fake evidence to prosecute them, so I believe that the whole time the case was set up against them.