Judith Holmes legal papers on Susan Rosenberg

Judith Holmes was a lawyer who represented Susan Rosenberg's case and a senior lecturer at UMass Amherst. Holmes recieved her B.A. from Chicago University in 1973 and her J.D. from Catholic University in 1976. Holmes because a lawyer in New York, and eventually joined with Susan Tipograph to create Holmes & Tipograph law firm in New York City. She represented many civil rights activists, including Kuwasi Balagoon of the Black Liberation Army and Susan Rosenberg of the May 19th Communist Organization. In 1992 she got her M.A. from University of Massachusetts and in 1996 she recieved her Ph.D. from the same University. Her disertation was titled "The politics of anticommunism in Massachusetts, 1930-1960." She went on to lecture at UMass Amherst until her retirement in 2014. In her time there she was a Senior Lecturer, the Undergraduate Program Director for Legal Studies, and the Associate Director of the Writing Program for Junior Year Writing.

The case that is represented in this collection is Susan Rosenberg's 1984 charges for possession of explosives and later appeals. Susan Rosenberg was active in the New Afrikan and Puerto Rican independence movements and even more active in the May 19 Communist Organization, a coalition consisting of the Black Liberation Army and one faction of the former Weather Underground. In 1982, accused of assisting in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, Rosenberg went underground. She was also accused of driving the getaway car in the 1981 Brinks robbery that led to the deaths of two police officers and an armored-car guard in upstate New York. She was captured in 1984, along with Timothy Blunt, while transferring guns and explosives from a car into a Cherry Hills, New Jersey storage unit. Found guilty of the illegal possession of firearms and explosives, Blunt and Rosenberg were each sentenced to fifty-eight years in jail. Many at the time felt the unusually long sentences were due to the revolutionary beliefs both expressed throughout their trial. She served sixteen years before President Bill Clinton pardoned her on his last day in office, January 20, 2001.