Why the Evidence Against Oswald Would Not Have Stood Up in Court

The Katzenbach memo to Bill Moyers laid out the foundation for the President’s Commission. Noting that it must prove that “the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”

In order to do that, you had to allow and disallow evidence according to judicial rules and protocol.

But the Commission didn’t do that.

They allowed the wife to testify against her husband.

The Commission allowed witness identifications from lineups that were obviously unfair.

They allowed evidence that was never identified by the person who found it.

The Commission allowed hearsay statements allegedly made by the accused.

They called witnesses who had no evidence to offer and ignored others who did.

They disavowed testimony from their own experts.

This was not a criminal investigation. This was a collection of evidence against one suspect. And they did not present the evidence in such a way that Oswald, “would have been convicted at trial”.

In my years of studying this case, I’ve come to realize the areas where the Commission fell short in this regard. 

NO evidence

In the end, the Commission provided NO Evidence that Oswald:

picked up the rifle at the Dallas Post Office.

took a 38-inch package to work on the morning of November 22nd, 1963.

brought a 38-inch package into the building.

constructed the 38-inch paper “gun sack”.

fired the rifle.

knew in advance that the motorcade would pass in front of his place of work.

was on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting.

picked up the handgun at the REA Express office.

pulled the trigger and the handgun misfired in the Texas Theater.

went to Irving on the evening of November 21st to retrieve a rifle.

had any animosity towards the President.

In addition, the Commission provided NO EVIDENCE that the:

“gun sack” ever contained a rifle.

rifle was fired on November 22nd.

bullets that killed Officer J.D. Tippit came from the handgun in evidence.

No corroborating evidence

The Commission accepted as evidence, allegations for which there was no corroboration.

There is no corroborating evidence for William Whaley’s account that Oswald was in his cab or offered the cab to a woman.

No corroborating evidence for Marina’s account that Oswald had a rifle in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.

There is no corroborating evidence for Mary Bledsoe’s account that Oswald was wearing the CE 150 shirt on her bus.

Not only did the Commission accept as evidence allegations for which there was no corroboration, they accepted as exhibits items that were never identified by the people who found them.

No chain of custody

In a normal criminal trial, the prosecution would be required to establish an item as evidence BEFORE a judge would allow it to be submitted as an exhibit.

To do that, a chain of custody would have to be established by having the first witness who came in contact with it identify it. This would establish its relevance to the case. After such identification, the prosecution would then ask the court to accept the evidence as an exhibit.

But in this case, although the Warren Commission’s agenda was to present the evidence in such a way that Oswald “would have convicted at trial”, it did not follow normal judicial rules or protocol.

Instead, it accepted items as exhibits without so much as an identification from the person who found them. This could not have been an oversight, because they did this time and time again.

Items not identified

Among those items which were accepted WITHOUT identification from the people who found them were:

Commission Exhibit 139 – the C2766 rifle was never identified by the person who found it ( Dallas Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone ) as the rifle he found on the sixth floor.

CE 142 – the brown paper 38-inch “gun sack” was never identified by witnesses as the package Oswald brought to work that morning.

Commission Exhibit 150 – the shirt Oswald was arrested in was never identified by witnesses who saw him as the shirt he wore to work that morning.

Commission Exhibit 162 – the “tannish grey” jacket allegedly found under a car in a parking lot a block from the Tippit murder scene was never identified by the person who reported it found (Off. J.T. Griffin) as the jacket he reported.

CE 399 – was never identified by the person who found it ( Darrell Tomlinson ) as the bullet he found.

Commission Exhibits 543, 544 and 545 – the three 6.5 rifle shells were never identified by the person who found them ( Dallas Deputy Luke Mooney ) as the shells he found on the sixth floor.

Commission Exhibit 594 – the four shells found at the Tippit murder scene were never identified by the witnesses who found them ( Domingo Benavides and Barbara and Virginia Davis ) as the shells they found.

Conclusion

All of these items were accepted by the Warren Commission as Exhibits without establishing either a chain of custody or a positive identification from the people who found them.

Had this case gone to criminal trial, without the positive identification from the people who found them, none of these items would have been admitted as evidence.

In many occasions, the Commission came to conclusions based on speculation. It relied on the second, third or fourth person who handled the item to identify it and start the chain of custody. It accepted as fact testimony for which there was no corroboration. And it flat out lied when it had no evidence.

This is not what happens during a criminal homicide investigation.

But this is exactly what you do when you’re trying to frame an innocent man and cover-up a crime.