Biography
Salvatore Accorsi was an Italian immigrant tried for the murder of a Pennsylvania state trooper and acquitted after roughly six months in custody facing the electric chair.
On August 22, 1927, thousands of workers — many of them striking Italian coal miners — gathered at Guido Grove near Cheswick, Pennsylvania to protest the impending executions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Mounted state police charged into the gathering, using clubs, horses and tear gas to disperse the crowd. During the confrontation Private Downey was shot and killed.
Accorsi subsequently moved to Staten Island, New York. He was arrested there on June 12, 1929 and extradited to Pennsylvania, where he was confined in the Allegheny County jail at Pittsburgh while facing a possible death sentence. The International Labor Defense, which called the case a frame-up, organized a national campaign on his behalf and supported his wife and three young children during his imprisonment.
His murder trial began in Pittsburgh on December 9, 1929. The prosecution relied heavily on disputed eyewitness identifications. A contemporary defense account reported that a state trooper who positively identified Accorsi at trial had previously testified that he could not describe the person who fired the shot, and that another description characterized the gunman as having a moustache. Contemporary labor publications also presented conflicting accounts of whether Accorsi had attended the protest or was at home several miles away when the shooting occurred.
After deliberating for approximately eighteen hours, the jury found Accorsi not guilty on December 13, 1929, and he was released after approximately 185 calendar days in custody. The novelist Sinclair Lewis attended the trial and spoke at a public celebration following the acquittal.
Daily Worker, July 22, 1929, page 4: The ILD appealed to the Appellate Division after Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Reigelman refused habeas corpus intended to prevent extradition to Pennsylvania. Roosevelt had first refused and later approved extradition after new affidavits. The newspaper challenges Trooper William M. Brown’s identification by contrasting it with his inquest statement and describes Robert McKay’s account of the police attack. These are attributed defense arguments and a pending appellate stage, not an acquittal, completed transfer date or new arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n116-NY-jul-22-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3’s ILD appeal announces Accorsi’s Pittsburgh trial for the following Monday. This prospective notice corroborates the existing December 9, 1929 trial schedule and does not supersede his later documented acquittal or establish a new custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n234-NAT-dec-06-1929-DW-Q.pdf
The issue reports an ILD-authorized defense, a denied Kings Supreme Court habeas application and a pending appeal concerning Accorsi’s extradition. The headline’s execution-stay wording concerns the effort to prevent extradition, not an imposed death sentence or an actual execution. Vern Smith’s retrospective on page 6 dates the arrest only to early June 1929 and gives the spelling Accorisi; it does not replace a better sourced exact arrest or establish an additional 1927 arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n146-NY-aug-26-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=6 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n146-NY-aug-26-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Daily Worker, December 28, 1929, page 5: The convention report individually names Accorsi among ILD delegates. This corroborates post-prosecution public activity without establishing a fresh custody episode or changing an independently documented release date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n253-NAT-dec-28-1929-DW-Q.pdf
Pages 1 and 3 announce an Accorsi trial for the following Monday concerning the August 22, 1927 Cheswick Sacco-Vanzetti protest and Trooper Downey's death. The paper criticizes reliance on coal-and-iron policeman J. J. Brown and names defense attorney Jacob Margolis. The announced November date is a forecast, not a replacement for the separately documented December trial and later acquittal. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n213-NY-nov-12-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The December 12, 1929 Daily Worker reports the Pittsburgh murder trial in a dispatch dated December 11. It names District Attorney Langfitt as presenting the prosecution and Judge McLaughery as denying a defense motion to free Accorsi. A separate article on page 4 calls Accorsi thirty-four years old and places his Staten Island arrest in June 1929 without a day. The reported age conflicts with the existing September 23, 1897 birth entry and is not used to infer or replace a birth date. The trial report expected the case to reach the jury the following day; that forecast is not proof of an actual acquittal or release. Existing arrest, admission, discharge, birth and duration values remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, December 12, 1929, original PDF pages 1, 3, 4.
Reported jail isolation and limits on visits and food
The December 7, 1929 Daily Worker reports that Salvatore Accorsi was kept virtually isolated in Allegheny County jail before his murder trial. It says International Labor Defense representatives could not visit him, relatives were allowed two visits a week, and only one basket of food a week was permitted while additional food was refused. These are attributed contemporary descriptions of confinement conditions, not independently adjudicated findings. The issue announces December 9 as the forthcoming trial date; that forecast is not used as proof that trial occurred or as a custody endpoint. The stronger later trial and acquittal account, stored arrest and actual release, existing dates and duration remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, December 7, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
A reported arrest-month discrepancy and pretrial witness pressure
The November 28 Pittsburgh dispatch in this issue attributes to defense attorney J. Margolis allegations that state police were intimidating miners and other Cheswick witnesses before the announced December 9 murder trial. The article places Salvatore Accorsi’s Staten Island arrest in September 1929, conflicting with the existing June 12 entry and the later report placing arrest in June. Its retrospective month is not silently substituted for the current arrest or admission. The original print places the protest shooting on August 22, 1927; OCR variants are not treated as new dates. The scheduled trial is not proof of a completed trial, acquittal, release or a new custody episode; the stronger later trial account and stored 184-day duration remain intact. Margolis is the reported defense attorney, not a prosecutor or judge.
Daily Worker, November 29, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
A completed jury submission and attributed trial-condition account
The Pittsburgh dispatch dated December 12 reports that the Accorsi case went to the jury that day and that the jurors were locked up for the night; its expectation of a verdict the next morning is not itself proof of an acquittal or release. The continuation explicitly names District Attorney George F. Langfitt in the questioning of a prosecution witness, expanding the surname already recorded for this same case. Sender Garlin’s accompanying account describes Accorsi entering court handcuffed and reports nearly fifteen pounds lost during what it calls seven months of confinement. That retrospective duration is preserved as reported, not substituted for the independently stored June 12–December 13 interval or its 184-day figure. The original opening calls Accorsi thirty-eight, conflicting with the separately stored birth date and another contemporary age report; no birth date or age is inferred from it. The judge is printed as J. A. McLaughrey, a spelling variant alongside the existing McLaughery entry, not silently installed as a new identity. Allegations about jury exclusions, intimidation and political bias are Garlin’s account, not independent judicial findings.
Daily Worker, December 13, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Contemporary claims and allegations remain attributed to the newspaper and named writer.
Sender Garlin’s acquittal account explicitly dates Accorsi’s arrest June 12, 1929 and reports him acquitted and free by publication. It describes the August 22, 1927 Cheswick protest, disputed eyewitness identification, and the defense’s challenge to trooper testimony. Accorsi is described as thirty-eight and father of three. No birth date is calculated or exact discharge day inferred. Loose editorial wording about conviction is not treated as a conviction against the article’s clear acquittal report.
The Pittsburgh report says the jury was secured December 9 and testimony began December 10. It contrasts Trooper Brown’s claimed identification during the Cheswick confrontation with his earlier inquest testimony; those claims are attributed to the newspaper. Joseph North’s page 4 column calls Accorsi thirty-four, conflicting with the January 1930 Labor Defender account’s thirty-eight; no birth date is inferred. The issue predates the verdict, and its approximate two-years-after chronology does not replace the recorded June 12 arrest. The page 1 photograph depicts his wife and three children, not Accorsi.
Daily Worker, July 22, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 6, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 28, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, November 12, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
