 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.