Topic: Nicola Sacco

Ferdinando Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888) both executed August 23, 1927, were two Italian-born laborers and anarchists who were tried, wrongly convicted and executed via electrocution on August 23, 1927 in Massachusetts for the 1920 armed robbery and murder of a pay-clerk and a security guard in Braintree, Massachusetts.

Today, the case continues to incite controversy based on questions regarding culpability, the question of the innocence or guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti, and conformance, the question of whether the trials were fair to Sacco and Vanzetti.

On August 23, 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis signed a proclamation declaring, "Any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed from the names of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. We are not here to say whether these men are guilty or innocent. We are here to say that the high standards of justice, which we in Massachusetts take such pride in, failed Sacco and Vanzetti."