Why were the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti Controversial

let me sum this up. They were convicted of murder without hard evidence. Apex

Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two Italian activists and anarchists. The two were arrested, tried and sentenced to death on charges of murder of an accountant and a guard of the "Slater and Morrill" shoe factory in South Braintree.

There were many doubts about their guilt at the time of their trial; the confession of the Portuguese prisoner Celestino Madeiros, who exonerated them, was of no use. The two were executed in the electric chair on August 23, 1927 in the Charlestown penitentiary, near Dedham.

It is now assumed that the condemnation of Sacco and Vanzetti was widely influenced by the Red Scare, by which all suspected of communist, socialist or anarchist saw significantly diminished their chances of proving their innocence.

Fifty years after their death, on August 23, 1977, Michael Dukakis, governor of the State of Massachusetts, officially recognized the errors committed in the trial and completely rehabilitated the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.