Fyke Farmer (November 25, 1901 – May 23, 1997) was a

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

lawyer who worked on the behalf of

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...

Biography

He was born on November 25, 1901 in

Cedar Hill, Tennessee Cedar Hill is a city in Robertson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 301 at the 2020 census. History Jo Byrns, who became Speaker of the House of Representatives, was born in Cedar Hill on July 28, 1869. The local elementar ...

. He married Fanny Richards Leake, daughter of Charles Richards Leake. They had three daughters, Dorothy Leake Farmer, Mary Sue Farmer, and Anne Farmer and a son Fyke Farmer. Farmer argued that the Rosenbergs were tried under the wrong law, claiming that the Atomic Energy Act, under which a sentence of death can be imposed only upon recommendation of a jury, should have been applied rather than the Espionage Act of 1917, which leaves that power exclusively to the discretion of the court. On the basis of Farmer's arguments, a temporary stay was granted to the Rosenbergs by Justice

William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often c ...

on 17 June 1953. The

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

vacated Douglas's stay by a vote of 6-3. The Rosenbergs were executed on 19 June 1953. In 1990, Farmer filed "United States ex rel. Farmer v. Kaufman" against

Irving R. Kaufman Irving Robert Kaufman (June 24, 1910 – February 1, 1992) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern Dist ...

, the judge who presided over the Rosenbergs' trial, but he was found to have no standing to sue Kaufman. His papers are archived at the Library of Congress.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farmer, Fyke 1901 births 1997 deaths People from Robertson County, Tennessee Tennessee lawyers American tax resisters 20th-century American lawyers