The guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti in regard to the South Braintree murders was of no direct concern to the Department of Justice. Most of the Boston agents who knew anything about the case felt that Sacco and Vanzetti were not guilty. This was the opinion of Fred Weyand, who later deposed: _From my investigation, combined with the investigation made by the other agents of the Department in Boston, I am convinced not only that these men had violated the Selective Service rules and regulations and evaded the draft, but that they were anarchists, and that they ought to have been deported. By calling these men anarchists, I do not mean necessarily that they were inclined to violence, nor do I understand all the different meanings that different people would attach to the word “anarchist.” What I mean is that I think they did not believe in organized government or in private property. But I am also thoroughly convinced, and always have been, and I believe that it is and always has been the opinion of such Boston agents of the Department of Justice as had any knowledge on the subject, that these men had nothing whatever to do with the South Braintree murders, and that their conviction was the result of cooperation between the Boston agents of the Department of Justice and the District Attorney. It was the general opinion of the Boston agents of the Department of Justice having knowledge of the affair that the South Braintree crime was committed by a gang of professional highwaymen._ Six months before the trial Moore was reiterating the claim, sensationally and vociferously, that Sacco and Vanzetti would not and could not get a fair hearing in the biased atmosphere of Norfolk County. In his experience rigged trials were common enough, but beyond this it was part of his tactics to claim unfairness in advance. Many earnest defenders of Sacco and Vanzetti have maintained, as did Moore, that in the postwar period of xenophobia no alien holding extreme political beliefs could possibly have found justice in conservative Dedham at the hands of a local jury. As early as January 1921, a Defense Committee pamphlet claimed that “a Northern jury does not examine the law and the evidence impartially when a murder accusation is leveled against a member of the Mediterranean race whose reputation is colored with the fanciful versions of the Mafia that furnished Sunday-Magazine readers mental diet for so many years.”