Book Festival: Martin J. Siegel 

Join us in a discussion of Martin J. Siegel’s Judgment and Mercy: The Turbulent Life and Times of the Judge Who Condemned the Rosenbergs with University of Houston English/History Professor David Mikics.

In 1951, the world was focused on the infamous trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who were charged with atomic espionage. The presiding judge, Irving Kaufman, sentenced them to the death penalty. In this compelling biography, Houston attorney Martin J. Siegel, who served as Kaufman’s last law clerk, upends the simplistic portrait of Judge Kaufman and brings his complexities to life. Seen by many as a McCarthyite villain, Kaufman was one of the most illustrious progressive jurists of his day.