Irving Kaufman

Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 - February 1, 1992) was the judge who presided over the trial of Ethel Rosenberg. Roy Cohn, the prosecutor in the case who happened to be a family friend of Kaufman, claimed in his autobiography that his influence led to Kaufman (a family friend) being appointed to the case, and that Kaufman had imposed the death penalty on Cohn's personal advice. Some critics have written the Rosenbergs, though with overwhelming evidence against them, did not receive a fair trial from Kaufman. Still, other critics have claimed Judge Kaufman, a Jew, like the Rosenbergs, offered them up to look like a "good Jew".

Judge Kaufman served as a United States Judge for the Southern District of New York. After Judge Kaufman had pronounced a sentence of death to the Rosenbergs, he was later appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Kaufman excelled in school, and graduated from Fordham University at age 18, and from law school two years later.

The judge is forced for the most part to reach his audience through the medium of the press whose reporting of judicial decisions is all too often inaccurate and superficial (see [[1]]).

The previous statement is in contradiction to the time-honored judicial maxim that "judges speak through their journals".