The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - Essay Example

The film was originally shown in 1974, but after 100,000 pages of FBI documents were released several years later, a new introduction and postscript were added and it was re-televised in 1978. In the addition, some of the testimony of the witnesses against the Rosenbergs is questioned and the judge is claimed to have broken the ethical code of judges. The film concludes that the Rosenbergs were not executed because they were guilty but because they refused to admit they were guilty.

Another primary source is Judge Kauffman's Statement Upon Sentencing the Rosenbergs which is available at the link: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_SENT.HTM.

In this statement, the judge sentenced the couple to death saying that their crime was worst than murder and that they entered such "serious conspiracy with full realization of the implications." The said judge being the presiding judge on the said trial issued this statement sentencing them to the electric chair.

The photographs, film, and the statement relating to the period when the Rosenbergs were on trial and convicted. The film was an account of the trial, revealing footage of the news and trials, as well as interviews. The statement of sentencing was made on the same period they were convicted and the photographs were taken also on the period the couples were on trial.

These primary sources of the case were significant for they are depicting the period of the trial. Of course, with the exception of the film which was published in the 1970s where the issue on the innocence and fair trial of the Rosenbergs were at their prime. Both the photographs and the statement were made during the same period, which is during the trial of the Rosenbergs.