Postmortem: New Evidence in the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti

by William Lewis Young

Over six decades after the polemical Sacco and Vanzetti case, in which the two anarchist Italian immigrants were convicted of first-degree murder and executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Young and Kaiser revisit the case's evidence as well as the key actors who determined its outcome. The authors situate their meticulous reexamination of the court evidence and prosecuting and defense arguments within the long-standing dispute between political leftists and conservatives regarding the integrity of the conviction, edifying the left's accusations of anti-Italianism and anti-anarchism. Their analysis magnifies both the likelihood of contrived evidence and the fallibility of our criminal justice system's impartiality, pointing to important questions concerning the nature of a fair trial and the influence of prejudice and politics in juridical processes. As such, Postmortem functions as a detailed introduction to the infamous 1921 Sacco and Vanzetti trial as well as a meditation on enduring dilemmas of the American judicial branch.

Paperback

First published August 1, 1985

About the author

Transformed by reading into a real-life Harry Potter with supernatural powers. Transformed by reading from scarecrow with no brain to a real genius with a 400,000 dollar degree, getting full tuition scholarships to pay for it. Transformed from ten thousand per year to ten thousand per hour wage earner from reading books.

Reviews

[Christopher Daley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only book about the case in the last three decades that actually has something new. Most books about the case produced after this really don't offer anything new - just a rehash of the same old stuff.