New Orleans DA ordered to confer on JFK files
NEW ORLEANS (Reuter) - District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. was
ordered Monday to reach agreement with a government board that wants
his files on a controversial 1960s investigation into the assassination
of President John Kennedy.
U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais indicated that he thought
Connick should hand the files over to the JFK Assassination Records
Review Board, but said he would wait for the two sides to work out
a deal.
The records board, created by Congress in 1994, wants Connick
to turn over papers from an investigation by then-U.S. Attorney Jim
Garrison, who charged that New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw conspired
with Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Kennedy.
Shaw was tried in 1969, but acquitted. Garrison died in 1992,
but his story became the basis for the controversial film "JFK" by
director Oliver Stone.
Connick has refused to hand over the files, which have been in
his position for a number of years, saying the Garrison investigation
was a sham and of no use to the records board.
"Every man and woman alive and above the age of reason in New
Orleans in 1969 when this was happening knew this investigation was
a farce. It is no more relevant to the assassination of President
Kennedy than the movie 'JFK' is," said Connick's attorney William
Wessel.
But Connick also is using the Garrison files as leverage to regain
grand jury records from the investigation, which were sent to the
records board last year by an assistant district attorney after Connick
denied their existence.
Connick, who is the father of singer Harry Connick Jr., has said
the grand jury records contain names of witnesses who are still alive
and whose privacy will be violated if their names are disclosed.
But Livaudais warned Connick that the records board may have a
right to the Garrison papers.
"If these are assassination records, and I'm inclined to say they
are, then the board could take them whether you want them to or not,
" he said.
The judge said he would give the two sides two to three weeks
to reach an agreement before deciding whether to bring them back to
court.
REUTER
Copyright 1996 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The above news report
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Daugherty, Christi, New Orleans DA ordered to confer on JFK files., Reuters, 03-25-1996.