Throughout the trial, it was obvious that both men, being Italian and new immigrants, didn't understand the questions being asked of them, and quite often answered wrong. Though both men had excellent alibis, Sacco was in Boston posing for pictures with his wife and child, and Vanzetti was selling fish in Plymouth. However, some witnesses identified two Italian men as the perpetrators. The prosecution then played off of the fact that all of the defense witnesses that were confirming the alibis were all Italian.
One reason that Vanzetti is one to be pitied is for his lack of effort to clear his name. I feel that because of his un-education and the sudden change of environment into America, Vanzetti got his morals mixed up. He seemed more concerned with his 'Fifteen Minutes of Fame', even as a murderer, than having a cleared name. Vanzetti commented to a journalist: "If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by accident. Our words - our lives - our pains - nothing! The taking of our lives - lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler - all! That last moment belong to us - that agony is our triumph. Even after men came up and confessed to the murders, the Police refused to investigate the crime further (i.e. Schoolnet.com). By the summer of 1927, it became clear that Vanzetti and Sacco would be executed. After being convicted of murder in the first degree, both men were sentenced to death by electrocution.
I admire Bartolomeo Vanzetti for his conviction to what he believed in, even when it came to fleeing the country to avoid the war. In this case it was not an act of cowardice but a silent strike against war. It was his way of telling the Government that he did not support the war. Throughout Vanzetti's whole life he knew what he was doing. Whether it was moving to America to become a fish peddler, getting involved in left-wing politics, becoming an anarchist, befriending Sacco, or knowing that his death was acceptable to him.
I admire his strength, but pity his morals. He thought that it was worth it to die for a crime done not by him, and to let the murderer get a walk, so long as 250,000 people held a silent memorial for him after his death. Bartolomeo led a strong fulfilled life until his death, and only then did his convictions fail and lead him somewhere he did noone any service to go.