[2] She launched her career as a direct response to the internationally controversial Sacco and Vanzetti case, which her husband worked on as an assistant defense councilman.

Ehrmann's activism spread to other areas; she was a national membership chairman of the American Jewish Committee, the first president of the League of Women Voters, and a member of the United Prison Association and the Friends of Framingham Reformatory.

[2] He was an assistant defense councilman for the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, and both he and his wife were very active in civic affairs and the Jewish community.

Under her leadership, Massachusetts law was changed to allow members of the jury to vote for life imprisonment instead of execution on convictions for first-degree murder.

Ehrmann said in an interview with The Boston Globe: To every possible question that I've asked myself to justify the death penalty, I've never found a satisfactory answer.