Wins fight for death penalty modification

International News Photos (New York, N.Y.) · April 5, 1951

Mrs. Sara Erhmann, successful after a 23-year fight to modify death penalty in Massachusetts for first degree murder, happily scans the bill. Mrs. Erhmann, wife of Boston attorney Herbert Erhmann, mother of a doctor and a rabbi and prominent in local civic affairs, became interested in the campaign as a result of the Sacco-Vanzetti case in which her husband served as an assistant counsel. She says she and other committee members will now turn their attention to modification or abolition of the law in Pennsylvania. The newly passed bill in Massachusetts allows juries to recommend life sentence instead of death in certain cases.