Archives West Finding Aid

The papers consist of case files, general files, and a few personal papers.

Case files include Farnsworth (John S.) vs. Sanford, 1940; Mooney (Thomas J.) vs. Holohan, 1937; Rosenberg (Julius and Ethel) vs. United States of America, 1952; Sacco and Vanzetti vs. Hendry, 1927; and Waller (Odell) vs. Youell, 1941.

The Thomas J. Mooney case file includes a full set of motions, briefs, and petitions before the Supreme Court, a transcript of record (13,414 pages) taken in the matter of Mooney's application for a writ of habeas corpus before the California Supreme Court, 1935-1936, and correspondence, 1932-1939, with Mooney, Frank P. Walsh, Roger Baldwin, Murray C. Bernays, George T. Davis, Arthur Garfield Hays, Henry W. Bikle, and Warren K. Billings.

Files on the Rosenberg case include petitions and briefs, transcript of record, affidavit of Harold C. Urey, and a transcript of a meeting of the grievance committee of the Bar Association of New York City in the matter of Emanuel Bloch, attorney for the Rosenbergs. Other cases involve Selena Royle, Kenneth W. Colegrove, and William W. Remington.

General files consist of documents and correspondence, most concerned with civil liberties cases. There is a file of American Civil Liberties Union material on the exclusion of minority parties from the ballot in certain states, 1940-1942. Finerty was special counsel to the Commission of Inquiry into the charges made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials, 1937. The papers include transcripts and statements of this commission.

Other files concern Lawrence Dennis, the Dies Committee (House Un-American Activities Committee), the Georgia county unit system, Carlo Tresca, and the Workers Defense League. One file contains minutes, press releases, and correspondence of the Keep America Out of War Congress, Inc., 1941-1942. There is a collection of briefs relating to the railroad cases argued by Finerty before the Interstate Commerce Commission or the Supreme Court.