•  
  •  
 
Vanderbilt Law Review

Authors

Brad Snyder

First Page

885

Abstract

The most watched case of the 1952 Supreme Court Term was not Brown v. Board of Education, but the case of convicted atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Sentenced to death in April 1951 for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets, the Rosenbergs dominated the news and divided the country. Their case came at the height of Cold War America's obsession with Communism. Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee were exposing alleged Communists in the federal government and Hollywood, and the U.S. military was fighting the Korean War to try to stop the spread of Communism abroad. The thought that domestic spies had helped the Soviets manufacture an atomic bomb tapped into people's worst fears. More than 70 percent of Americans wanted the Rosenbergs to pay for their crimes with their lives,' but a vocal minority had serious questions about their guilt or innocence, the fairness of their trial, and/or the harshness of their death sentences. The case was so controversial that outgoing President Harry Truman passed off the couple's clemency petition to his successor, Dwight Eisenhower. The Rosenbergs' executions sparked contentious rallies in major U.S. cities and violent protests abroad. Brown and Rosenberg demonstrate the Court's different approaches toward taking "great cases," of which Holmes declared, "like hard cases, make bad law." The Brown Court is often criticized for having done too much; the Rosenberg Court is criticized for not having done enough.

Download
COinS