The executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were scheduled to take place Thursday, June 18, 1953 at 11:00 pm. (This date, by coincidence or planning, happens to be the Rosenberg's 14 wedding anniversary.) The series of unfavorable legal decisions were inexorably leading up to this climatic event. Then Justice Douglas broke the gentleman's agreement*  between the nine members of the Supreme Court and issued a stay of execution. As previously planned Chief Justice Vinson, at the behest of the Justice Department, called for a special session of the Court. It was during that session that the stay was vacated. 
         These proceedings caused the execution date to be re-scheduled the following day, Friday, June 19 at 11:00 pm. But Friday evening at sundown is the start of the Jewish sabbath. A group of defense lawyers (Freedman and Scheiner) petitioned Kaufman to stay these executions for twenty-four hours. They argued that it would be sacrilege to kill some one on the sabbath. Kaufman said that he was also concerned about this religious violation and personally called Attorney General Brownell. The Attorney General assured him that there would be no "executions carried out through the sabbath."  Kaufman concluded by saying "there is no need for the stay to be argued here." 
          Since the sabbath ends on sundown the following day, the defense lawyers surmised that the executions were to take place Saturday night, 
June 20. This gave them a twenty-four hour reprieve in which to seek other avenues of redress. But unknown to these lawyers at that time, and maybe even to Kaufman, Attorney General Brownell had other plans.
          Brownell called Sing Sing warden Wilfred Denno and changed the executions not to after the sabbath Saturday night, but to before the sabbath 8:00 pm on that Friday evening. When Emanuel Bloch, main defense attorney for the Rosenbergs, found out that he had been of victim of this cruel, inhumane deception, that the executions were moved ahead, he went into a screaming tirade ending with "I am ashamed to be an American."  He then telephoned Sing Sing and left a message: "This is Manny Bloch. Please tell Julie and Ethel I did the best I could for them. . . Tell them I love them. . . "  Bloch hung up the phone and wept. 
 
 

* On June 15, 1953 the Supreme Court held a special session considering a writ of habeas corpus, filed by defense attorney John Finerty. It was during this session that the nine justices agreed that any new motions, regardless of merit, pertaining to the Rosenberg case, will not be considered. This gentleman's agreement  was no doubt due to  external events and the bitter internal haggling about the Rosenberg case that had persisted for so long. It would be in the best interests of the Court and the country if the case was to be disposed of quickly and without further delay. Expediency prevails over justice.