MUSMANNO, MICHAEL A. 1898-1968

DEFENSE ATTORNEY

Italian lawyer

In 1926 Michael Angelo Musmanno was attempting to build a law practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Despite an impressive record of advanced legal training abroad, most notably in Italy, he had not been able to find a position with any of the prestigious Pittsburgh law firms, which were "closed shops" when it came to hiring ethnic Americans, especially those of Italian, Irish, or Slavic descent. Most of Musmanno's clients came from the local Italian American community, and he was also developing a reputation around western Pennsylvania as a labor advocate. In autumn 1926 he accepted an offer to join the defense team preparing legal appeals for Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-immigrant anarchists who had been found guilty and sentenced to death for two murders committed during an armed robbery.

Defending Sacco and Vanzetti

Musmanno believed that nativist prejudice against ethnic Americans was at the root of the case. He was convinced that much of the evidence presented by the prosecution had been fabricated and that both defendants had received the death penalty because of their political views. Musmanno became so dedicated to the campaign to save Sacco and Vanzetti that he refused any payment for his services. He spent most nights on a cot at the headquarters of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee in Boston, Massachusetts. Although a newcomer to the defense team, Musmanno was a major influence on basic defense strategies in the later stages of the case. He drafted the final appeal briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court and did the "leg work" in the futile last-minute attempts to persuade one of the justices to grant temporary stays of execution.

Later Career

Musmanno retained a lifelong belief that the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti were miscarriages of justice. In 1932 he was elected to a judgeship on the Allegheny County Criminal Court, and in 1946 he served as a military prosecutor at the Nazi war-crimes trials in Nuremburg, Germany. For the last two decades of his life Musmanno was an associate justice on the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court.

Sources:

Francis Russell, Tragedy in Dedham (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964);

Clifford Turtle, "Christopher Columbus's American Lawyer: Michael A. Musmanno and the Vinland Map," Pittsburgh History, 7 (Fall 1994): 19-26.