The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti

A classic from The Atlantic's now free archives. Felix Frankfurter, a professor at Harvard Law School, was considered the most prominent critic of the trial. His 1927 article about Sacco and Vanzetti sounds faintly familiar of the current administration:

In 1921 the temper of the times made it the special duty of a prosecutor and a court engaged in trying two Italian radicals before a jury of native New Englanders to keep the instruments of justice free from the infection of passion or prejudice. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti no such restraints were respected. By systematic exploitation of the defendants' alien blood, their imperfect knowledge of English, their unpopular social views, and their opposition to the war, the District Attorney invoked against them a riot of political passion and patriotic sentiment; and the trial judge connived atone had almost written, cooperated inthe process.