PSC404, Spring 2001
Answers to Assignment 8
Pre-WCR Reactions by the Left: Mark Lane

Read: “Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer’s Brief,” by Mark Lane. Also read Lane’s biography to get some further background on him.

Answer these questions (briefly):
     
1. What is a lawyer’s brief for the defense, and how does it differ from our normal class discussions? A lawyer’s brief for the defense is a collection of all possible arguments that tend to cast doubt on the prosecution’s case that the defendant is guilty. Note that the arguments are designed to show the defendant not guilty, as opposed to being innocent. Our class examines arguments directly for guilt and innocence, not guilt and nonguilt. Nonguilt is not good enough for us.

      2. Analyze Lane’s response to each of Henry Wade’s 15 assertions and see how strong and germane each is. If necessary, check the WCR or other sources for relevant facts.
           
(1) A number of witnesses saw Oswald at the window of the sixth floor of the TSBD.
           
Lane: It all comes down to one witness, who couldn’t identify Oswald in a lineup. Too speculative to be admitted at a trial.
           
Comment: That witness was Howard Brennan, who saw Oswald much more clearly than that. His description was good enough to get him pulled over within 30 minutes.

            (2) Oswald’s palm print appeared on the rifle.
           
Lane: There wasn’t a palm print and it wouldn’t have been identifiable.
           
Comment: There really was a palm print, but the first lifting by the DPD prevented the FBI from seeing it later. Sebastian Latona of the FBI identified it as Oswald’s.

            (3) Oswald’s palm print appeared on a cardboard box found at the window.
           
Lane: Any palm print would not be identifiable. Because it was found on only one box and nowhere else, it probably was planted. A DA who would lie about a palm print could certainly plant one after the fact.
           
Comment: The DA did not lie. (See 2). The palm print was identified as Oswald’s by three independent experts. No other employees left prints on the boxes in the normal course of their work there.

            (4) Paraffin tests on both hands showed that Oswald had fired a gun recently.
           
Lane: It may have showed that he fired a pistol recently but not a rifle. Tests on his face (for a rifle) were negative. Major doubt about his guilt.
           
Comment: Paraffin tests are very unreliable, and are used by police mainly to shield themselves from later criticism. They give false positives and false negatives.

            (5) Oswald had ordered the Italian rifle by mail under an assumed name.
           
Lane: The rifle was first called a Mauser. Oswald kept the P.O. box in his own name, so he wasn’t trying to hide the purchase. The rifle can’t be fired three times in five seconds. Wade later called it a Mannlicher-Carcano.
           
Comment: The rifle was genuinely mistakenly identified as a Mauser, which is quite similar to MC. The arguments about the PO box are irrelevant. The rifle can be fired three times in five seconds.

            (6) Oswald had in his possession an ID card with the name Hidell.
           
Lane: Why didn’t the authorities announce that they had found this card on the very day they arrested Oswald instead of one day later? It would have been an important second assumed name.
           
Comment: Who knows and who cares? There could be any number of reasons. It means nothing.

            (7) Oswald was seen in the TSBD by a police officer just after the President had been shot.
           
Lane: Why single out Oswald for arrest when he was still in the building where he worked? Since the building was sealed off immediately after the shooting, mustn’t Oswald have been allowed by leave by the police?
           
Comment: He wasn’t singled out—the officer was just being careful. The building wasn’t sealed off for several minutes after the shooting—plenty of time for Oswald to leave without rushing.

            (8) Marina said the rifle was missing Friday morning.
           
Lane: She never said that. She didn’t even know that Oswald owned a rifle and a pistol. How could she tell the story about Oswald’s trying to kill General Walker if she didn’t know he owned a rifle? One must wonder whether Oswald ever owned either weapon.
           
Comment: She knew about the rifle and the pistol because she had photographed him holding them.

            (9) Oswald had a package under his arm Friday.
           
Lane: Can’t know about the alleged package and its contents until Mrs. Oswald is released from protective custody.
           
Comments: True, but it later came out that he indeed brought a package, and it was later found on the sixth floor. Obviously not curtain rods!

            (10) On the bus, Oswald laughed loudly in describing the President’s death.
           
Lane: How did he escape from the building and why did he laugh loudly? Seems very unlikely.
           
Comments: The story about laugher is apocryphal. It’s also unimportant. Misinformation immediately after the fact is normal and expected.

            (11) A taxi driver, Darryl Click, took Oswald home, where he changed clothes.
           
Lane: It was William Whaley rather than Darryl Click. The whole escape seems very unlikely.
           
Comment: So what? They first got the wrong name, and Oswald had time enough to escape that way.

            (12) Oswald shot and killed a police officer.
           
Lane: Uncertainty as to where and how Oswald shot the officer and was arrested.
           
Comment: So what?

            (13) A witness saw Oswald enter the Texas Theater.
           
Lane: Various conflicts in the stories about how he entered the theater and how he was caught.
           
Comment: Early inconsistencies do not mean that the basic account is wrong.

            (14) When Oswald tried to shoot the arresting officer in the theater, the firing pin struck the bullet without exploding it.
           
Lane: Confusion about the physical evidence here.
           
Comments: Again, largely irrelevant until the facts sort themselves out.

            (15) A map was found in Oswald’s possession showing the scene of the assassination and the trajectory of a bullet.
           
Lane: Why did the alleged map appear late and then disappear?
           
Comments: There was no map. Who knows where the story came from? It’s true that the Dallas police didn’t handle the evidence and the press particularly well.

      3. List Lane’s “flaws in the ‘airtight’ case” and comment critically on each.
            (a) Oswald couldn’t get a fair trial after being tried in the press. Who knows? Just speculation on Lane’s part.
           
(b) Unclear motive and weird escape. Neither shows that he didn’t do it.

      4. Lane’s “affirmative case” presents “facts that tend to prove that Oswald did not shoot President Kennedy.”
     
(a) Comment on the phrase “tend to prove.” Not the same as prove. It’s very weak.
     
(b) Examine critically as many of Lane’s “facts” as you can.
           
(1) He had character witnesses. Pretty wimpy witnesses. They didn’t know him well.
           
(2) He could not have fired all three shots that hit because one entered Kennedy’s throat from the front. The morning after the shooting, people knew that the throat bullet had not come from the front. That made only two bullets that hit.
           
(3) No one could fire three shots in five seconds that that rifle. Of course they can—the first shot doesn’t count—there are only two reloadings necessary to fire three shots.
           
(4) There was a hole in the windshield from the front. Wrong—it was not a hole, and it came from the rear.
           
(5) Five bullets were discovered in all: the one that entered the throat from the front and remained lower in the body; the one from Connally’s thigh; the stretcher bullet; the one that broke into the two large fragments in the front of the car; and one found in the grass opposite where JFK was hit. The math is highly premature and way off—the fifth bullet never existed, and the “first three” are all the same. That makes two bullets only.
           
(6) The FBI announced its conclusions too soon—only hours after the killing. And they tuned out to be wrong about many of them. Early announcement does not make a conspiracy.
           
(7) The FBI will pressure the Warren Commission to reach the same conclusion that it had. So what? This is not a “fact” for an affirmative case.

Summary of Lane’s article: He is doing what a defense lawyer does—creating doubts in the mind of potential jurors. Most all of his arguments were known to be wrong at the time or proven wrong later. Collectively, the whole article amounts to nearly no defense of Oswald, and certainly does not come close to proving him innocent.

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