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Judgment and Mercy

Judgment and Mercy

The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs

by Martin J. Siegel

Published by: Cornell University Press

Imprint: Three Hills

448 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 × 27.00 mm, 15 b&w halftones - 15 Halftones, black and white

Paperback
9781501785016
Published: September 2025

£18.99

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Hardcover
9781501768521
Published: March 2023

£28.99

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

2023 National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Finalist

In Judgment and Mercy, Martin J. Siegel examines the complex life and career of Irving Kaufman, the judge infamous for sentencing Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for atomic espionage in 1951.

While many saw the Rosenberg affair as a McCarthyite stain on American justice, Kaufman later became a leading progressive, issuing key rulings on school desegregation, prison reform, and free speech.

Yet the Rosenberg case haunted him. Decades later, revelations of judicial misconduct led to renewed protests and calls for impeachment. His Supreme Court ambitions faded, and family tragedy deepened his suffering.

Absorbingly told, Judgment and Mercy reveals a judge both ambitious and tormented, exploring his influence on American history and the long shadow of a decision that shaped his legacy.

Prologue: The Funeral
1. Isidore Mortem
2. Demon Boy Prosecutor
3. A Dream Come True
4. At Home on the Bench and Park Avenue
5. The Trial of the Century
6. Worse Than Murder
7. Immortality
8. Beaten by the Harvards
9. Apalachin and the Little Rock of the North
10. Elevation and Descent
11. The Forgotten Man
12. Hippieland
13. The Most Cherished Tenet
14. Annus Horribilis
15. Some Form of Justice
16. Keep the Beacon Burning
Epilogue: "I Can't Believe I'm Going to Die"

Martin J. Siegel is Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law, Houston. After clerking for Judge Kaufman, he served as an Assistant US Attorney in Manhattan and on the staff of the US Senate Judiciary Committee. His writing has been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, and legal journals.

A major judicial biography that earns a place of distinction alongside other notable recent works such as Tomiko Brown-Nagin's Civil Rights Queen and Brad Snyder's Democratic Justice, Siegel's Judgment and Mercy gives its flawed, complex, and perhaps too-long-reviled subject the captivating, multi-dimensional chronicle his life and work deserve.
(New York Journal of Books)
The trial and executions of the Rosenbergs remain controversial to this day, and they've spawned a vast historical and polemical literature. Judgment and Mercy is the latest contribution. It seeks to provide a complete portrait of Kaufman by distinguishing between the bad judge of the Rosenberg trial and the good jurist who championed a variety of causes dear to the hearts of progressives. These included broadening the insanity defense, defending civil liberties and the desegregation of neighborhood schools, prosecuting individuals accused of torture outside the United States, and encouraging prison reform.
(Jewish Book Council)
Attorney Martin J. Siegel's well-written biography of his former boss (he was Kaufman's final law clerk), Judgment and Mercy, is fascinating and scrupulously fair.
(Washington Independent Review of Books)
An excellent biography. Succeeds masterfully in illuminating Kaufman's life.
(Washington Monthly)
A meticulous and unsentimental inquiry aimed at solving the mystery at the heart of Kaufman's career. There is much in this book to ponder about the responsibility of judges.
(Linda Greenhouse, The New York Review of Books)
Full of rich content, Judgment and Mercy presents an illuminating biography of Judge Irving Robert Kaufman...Siegel's account was historically and legally enlightening.
(The Florida Bar Journal)