Free Book Now Available -- Hasty Judgment: Why the JFK Case Is Not Closed

[Michael T. Griffith]

I did a little more digging into the matter of the HSCA’s access to the rifle palmprint lift. After doing so, I am not convinced that Scalice actually examined the lift itself.

I located the 7/7/1978 Klein-Moriarty HSCA memo, released in 2017, regarding the FBI’s inability to find the original Oswald’s prints for the HSCA. The memo is clearly and indisputably referring to all Oswald prints, not just his fingerprints. The memo uses “prints,” “fingerprints,” and “lifts” interchangeably, even when referring to the palmprint found on one of the boxes (“cardboard carton”) from the sixth-floor window and even when referring to Commission Exhibits 627 through 660, which included the rifle palmprint lift.

In one statement, the memo says “inquire about lifts re rifle, carton, and bag.” One of the prints from the carton was a palmprint, but the memo simply calls it and the others “lifts.” More revealingly, and conclusively, Moriarty added a note to his memo on 7/18/1978 that a Mr. Johnson from the FBI advised him that the FBI had none of the original lifts for Commission Exhibits 627 through 660: “no original lifts, have copies (C.E. 627 thru 660).” The rifle palmprint is CE 637, 638, and 639.

So according to this memo, the FBI told the HSCA that it could not find the original lifts for all prints identified by the Warren Commission as exhibits 627 through 660, which include the rifle palmprint lift. Here is the memo:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32262580.pdf

Two interesting side points about the memo before we get to Scalice’s statement about examining the palmprint lift, and these are points I have not seen discussed elsewhere:

* The memo mentions that Paine, the chief of the FBI’s latent prints office, said that the only way they could trace what had happened to the misplaced print evidence would be to examine “the original worksheet that the print section had to make up as it received the material initially,” but Paine said they were unable to find the worksheet either. 

* The memo mentions that Moriarty was getting “flack” from the FBI on this issue (“FBI flack”) but that Moriarty intended to continue “despite Bureau’s criticism.” Now, gee, why would the FBI be criticizing Moriarty, and giving him flack, for trying to obtain the original lifts for the HSCA?

Okay, so what are we to make of Scalice’s claim that he examined the palmprint lift itself in June when Moriarty stated in a July 18 postscript in his memo that the FBI had advised him that they could not find the original lifts for CEs 627 through 660, which included the rifle palmprint lift? Did Scalice really examine it? Or did he just look at photos and negatives of it? Based on the Klein-Moriarty memo, and based on Scalice’s report, I am inclined to think that Scalice did not examine the palmprint lift itself. Just for context and background, let us revisit the relevant section from Scalice’s HSCA report, where Scalice lists the items he examined and what he found:

(158) 9. Lift from rifle (designated commission exhibit 139) from the underside of the foregrip at the gun barrel end of the foregrip of a Mannlicher-Carcano, serial no. C2766. I identified five characteristics or points of identity which match the lift.

(159) 10. Latent palm print lifted from the underside of the gun barrel near the end of the foregrip, developed by the Dallas Police Department. I examined enlarged negatives which I identified as being identical to the right palm print of Lee Harvey Oswald. (8 HSCA 248)

In addition to the fact that Scalice said he examined an original lift that the FBI told Moriarty they could not find, a few questions come to mind:

1. Why is the palmprint lift not listed in the HSCA exhibits? If Scalice examined it, why is it not included in the HSCA exhibits? (If I am wrong and it is included, please correct me. I have checked three lists of the HSCA exhibits—the palmprint lift does not appear on any them.)

2. Why did Scalice not provide an exhibit number or numeric designation for the palmprint lift but provided this information for every other item that he examined?

3. Why was Scalice able to find only 5 matching characteristics on the palmprint lift itself, assuming he really examined it, but was able to find at least double that amount on the enlarged negatives of the lift? Notice that Scalice did not say that he identified the lift itself as matching Oswald’s palmprint—he only said this about the enlarged negatives of the lift.

Since the minimum number of points of identity required for a credible identification is 10 or 12, Scalice’s implication is that the negatives of the lift provided at least twice the number of matching characteristics than did the lift itself. We are left to infer this, because Scalice only implied it, and he did not testify and thus was never asked about the number of points of identity he allegedly found. 

4. Why did Scalice not testify? He simply submitted a report. Given the controversy and questions about the rifle palmprint, one would think that the committee would have wanted Scalice to testify to address those questions.

5. Why does the HSCA’s final report say nothing about any examination of the palmprint lift except the one done for the Warren Commission? This is a very curious omission. (The palmprint lift is not included in the final report’s list of exhibits either.)

[John Iacoletti]

So according to this memo, the FBI told the HSCA that it could not find the original lifts for all prints identified by the Warren Commission as exhibits 627 through 660, which include the rifle palmprint lift.

Interesting. So what did John Hunt scan in the National Archives, the original magic partial palmprint lift or just a copy?

Maybe Pat Speer would know.

[Tim Nickerson]

I did a little more digging into the matter of the HSCA’s access to the rifle palmprint lift. After doing so, I am not convinced that Scalice actually examined the lift itself.

I located the 7/7/1978 Klein-Moriarty HSCA memo, released in 2017, regarding the FBI’s inability to find the original Oswald’s prints for the HSCA. The memo is clearly and indisputably referring to all Oswald prints, not just his fingerprints. The memo uses “prints,” “fingerprints,” and “lifts” interchangeably, even when referring to the palmprint found on one of the boxes (“cardboard carton”) from the sixth-floor window and even when referring to Commission Exhibits 627 through 660, which included the rifle palmprint lift.

In one statement, the memo says “inquire about lifts re rifle, carton, and bag.” One of the prints from the carton was a palmprint, but the memo simply calls it and the others “lifts.” More revealingly, and conclusively, Moriarty added a note to his memo on 7/18/1978 that a Mr. Johnson from the FBI advised him that the FBI had none of the original lifts for Commission Exhibits 627 through 660: “no original lifts, have copies (C.E. 627 thru 660).” The rifle palmprint is CE 637, 638, and 639.

So according to this memo, the FBI told the HSCA that it could not find the original lifts for all prints identified by the Warren Commission as exhibits 627 through 660, which include the rifle palmprint lift. Here is the memo:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32262580.pdf

Two interesting side points about the memo before we get to Scalice’s statement about examining the palmprint lift, and these are points I have not seen discussed elsewhere:

* The memo mentions that Paine, the chief of the FBI’s latent prints office, said that the only way they could trace what had happened to the misplaced print evidence would be to examine “the original worksheet that the print section had to make up as it received the material initially,” but Paine said they were unable to find the worksheet either. 

* The memo mentions that Moriarty was getting “flack” from the FBI on this issue (“FBI flack”) but that Moriarty intended to continue “despite Bureau’s criticism.” Now, gee, why would the FBI be criticizing Moriarty, and giving him flack, for trying to obtain the original lifts for the HSCA?

Okay, so what are we to make of Scalice’s claim that he examined the palmprint lift itself in June when Moriarty stated in a July 18 postscript in his memo that the FBI had advised him that they could not find the original lifts for CEs 627 through 660, which included the rifle palmprint lift? Did Scalice really examine it? Or did he just look at photos and negatives of it? Based on the Klein-Moriarty memo, and based on Scalice’s report, I am inclined to think that Scalice did not examine the palmprint lift itself. Just for context and background, let us revisit the relevant section from Scalice’s HSCA report, where Scalice lists the items he examined and what he found:

In addition to the fact that Scalice said he examined an original lift that the FBI told Moriarty they could not find, a few questions come to mind:

1. Why is the palmprint lift not listed in the HSCA exhibits? If Scalice examined it, why is it not included in the HSCA exhibits? (If I am wrong and it is included, please correct me. I have checked three lists of the HSCA exhibits—the palmprint lift does not appear on any them.)

2. Why did Scalice not provide an exhibit number or numeric designation for the palmprint lift but provided this information for every other item that he examined?

There's no mention in that memo of Scalise having already examined a number of those items at the Latent Print Section of the FBI. Were none of them aware of it?

Some of the items that he examined were definitely photographs. The prints on the paper bag, for example. So it is possible, and even likely, that he never had the actual lift at his disposal. However, he specified that he used enlarged negatives of the palm print, which would be of the lift itself. While using secondhand photos of prints can be problematic when it comes to making positive identification, the use of photos taken by identification experts themselves is/was common.  Scalise was obviously comfortable enough with the quality of the negatives to make his determinations. It's similar to Cadigan using an enlarged photo of the money order to aid in his own identification of the handwriting on it. In fact, Latona himself used enlarged photographs to aid in his identification of prints.  Latona had photos of the prints prepared under his personal direction. The negatives that Scalise refers to would have been of the photos of the lift prepared for Latona.

3. Why was Scalice able to find only 5 matching characteristics on the palmprint lift itself, assuming he really examined it, but was able to find at least double that amount on the enlarged negatives of the lift? Notice that Scalice did not say that he identified the lift itself as matching Oswald’s palmprint—he only said this about the enlarged negatives of the lift.

Since the minimum number of points of identity required for a credible identification is 10 or 12, Scalice’s implication is that the negatives of the lift provided at least twice the number of matching characteristics than did the lift itself. We are left to infer this, because Scalice only implied it, and he did not testify and thus was never asked about the number of points of identity he allegedly found. 

You are still confusing Scalise's identification of the palm print with his matching of the lift to the barrel of the rifle. They are two separate things. Two separate identifications.

4. Why did Scalice not testify? He simply submitted a report. Given the controversy and questions about the rifle palmprint, one would think that the committee would have wanted Scalice to testify to address those questions.

Not sure why the HSCA wasn't interested in having Scalise testify.

[Michael T. Griffith]

A few points in reply to various comments about the backyard rifle photos:

* Any discussion of the backyard rifle photos has to start with the fact that in 1992 we discovered prints that were used in the fabrication process. Before lone-gunman theorists can expect us to address all of their labored, convoluted attempts to explain the indications of tampering in the photos, they need to first and foremost face the fact that the DPD prints released in 1992 show a part of the fabrication process that was used to create the photos.

* The DPD prints released in 1992 are especially revealing and crucial because one of them shows a DPD detective striking a pose that was not officially known to exist among the backyard rifle photos until 1976 when Geneva Dees gave a new backyard rifle photo to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mrs. Dees explained that she found the photo among the belongings of her late husband, former Dallas policeman Roscoe White. The photo is designated as 133-C-Dees. It shows the Oswald figure in a pose that is different from the poses in 133-A and 133-B. So, gee, what was going on with a DPD detective being photographed in Oswald’s backyard and striking a pose that no could have known about at the time, if the DPD’s story about “finding” the photos in Ruth Paine’s garage were true?

* John Mytton does not seem to understand the issue of the virtual sameness of backgrounds. He seems to be mistakenly assuming that the term “virtual sameness of backgrounds” refers to the amount of background visible in each photo and/or the position of the Oswald figure in relation to the background in each picture. It does not. The amount of background seen in the three photos differs. We are talking about the distances between objects in the backgrounds, not the amount of background seen in each photo.

When a camera moves between exposures during the taking of photos of the same scene, this will cause the distances between background objects in the scene to change, because the camera’s horizontal and vertical position relative to the background changed and because the camera’s distance from the target changed.

If the backyard rifle photos were taken in the manner alleged, i.e., taken with a cheap handheld camera that was passed back and forth between exposures, there would be substantial differences in the distances between background objects from photo to photo.

* Numerous photographic experts have noted that the backgrounds in the backyard rifle photos seem virtually identical, that the differences in the distances between objects are extremely small, and that this is a clear indication that the same background was keystoned and used for all the photos.

* The HSCA photographic evidence panel (PEP) was aware of this problem and sought to explain it. The PEP declared that it had found “measurable” differences in the distances between the background objects. But when you check the PEP’s report, you discover that these differences were incredibly small. PEP member Calvin McCamy acknowledged this in his testimony, although he did not fully explain just how small the differences were. He said that the measurements indicated the camera “moved slightly” between exposures, that the horizontal measurements showed “a small change” in the camera’s horizontal position between exposures, and that the vertical measurements showed a “very small” vertical movement of the camera between exposures. 

* Just how small was “small,” “very small,” and “slight”? Incredibly small. The PEP did parallax horizontal and vertical measurements on selected objects in the backgrounds. Parallax measurements are photogrammetric measurements performed to detect the slightest variations in distances between objects in photos.

The horizontal parallax measurements were done on points on the fence at three levels on 133-A and 133-B. There was an “a” measurement and a “b” measurement, each done at three levels. Here are the differences—in millimeters; yes, millimeters:

a-lower: 0.8 mm
a-middle: 0.1 mm
a-upper: 1.1 mm

b-lower: 0.5 mm
b-middle: 0.7 mm
b-upper: 0.1 mm

The largest difference was 1.1 mm, which equals 0.043 inches. If fractions are easier to grasp, 0.043 inches as a fraction is 11/256ths of an inch. By comparison, 1/16th of inch is 1.59 mm. So 1.1 mm is 30% smaller than 1/16th of an inch. And, again, that was the largest difference.

The vertical parallax measurements were done on two objects on the fence. To account for differences in magnification, the measurements were related to the distance from the left edge of one picket to the left edge of the next, and the scaling distance was measured on the two center pickets of the four pickets on the fence. The differences:

Gate bolt to screen: 1.7 mm
Scaling distance: 0.3 mm
Gate bolt to screen adjusted for scaling distance: 0.15 mm (1.96 mm in 133-A vs. 2.11 mm in 133-B)

If it helps any, here are the measurements as written in the PEP report:

133A: gate bolt to screen =30.4 mm. scaling; dist.=15.5 mm
30.4/15.5=1.96
133B: gate bolt to screen=32.1 mm, scaling dist.=15 .2 mm
32.1/15.2=2.11

You do not have to be a scientist or a mathematician to understand that these are very, very tiny differences. Just try to imagine the odds of the camera ending up in virtually the same horizontal, vertical, and distance position in relation to the target, to within a tiny fraction of an inch each time, after being handed back and forth between each exposure.

Mr. Mee, the NSA photographic expert whom I interviewed, was particularly struck by these amazingly tiny differences in background object distances. He said “no way” the variations would be so small if these photos were taken in the manner alleged. I quote from the transcript of my interview with him:

MTG.  Okay. Now, I'd like to ask you about the fact
that the panel found only very small variations in the
distances between objects in the background of the pictures.
Given the way that these photos were supposedly taken, does
that seem possible?

MR. MEE.  No, the variations would be greater if these
photographs were taken the way Marina said they were.  I mean,
like they showed in the video: She snaps a picture; Oswald walks
over and takes the camera from her; he advances the film; he
hands the camera back to her; he goes back over and assumes
another pose; she aims with the camera again and then takes the
picture; and they go through this process again for the third
photo.  No.  No way.  The camera would have moved more than
just a tiny fraction of an inch.

Even with a professional photographer who's trying to hold the
camera as still as possible, you're going to have more variations
in distance than what they're talking about in these pictures.
(https://miketgriffith.com/files/hastyjudgmentbook.pdf)

[John Mytton]

* Numerous photographic experts have noted that the backgrounds in the backyard rifle photos seem virtually identical, that the differences in the distances between objects are extremely small, and that this is a clear indication that the same background was keystoned and used for all the photos.

Do you even know what it means to apply "keystone" correction to a photograph?

The first image is an original backyard photograph and the second backyard photograph is where I've applied keystone correction to make the right hand posts more parallel with the left hand post.




Now when we directly compare these two images we see that every object within the frame is relatively proportional to each and every object within the image.



Whereas when we compare two separate backyard photos which were taken from different positions we immediately see that the relative distances between the objects is radically different, the distance between the top of the fence to the window behind changes, where the roof behind intersects with the stairs is in a different position, the top of the window frame on the left hand side shows more of the top surface, etc etc.



Btw please don't embarrass yourself any further, show these images to someone that you claim is an "expert" and let's see where that goes.

JohnM

[Michael T. Griffith]

Do you even know what it means to apply "keystone" correction to a photograph?

Now when we directly compare these two images we see that every object within the frame is relatively proportional to each and every object within the image.

Whereas when we compare two separate backyard photos which were taken from different positions we immediately see that the relative distances between the objects is radically different, the distance between the top of the fence to the window behind changes, where the roof behind intersects with the stairs is in a different position, the top of the window frame on the left hand side shows more of the top surface, etc etc.

Btw please don't embarrass yourself any further, show these images to someone that you claim is an "expert" and let's see where that goes.

Yeah, uh-huh. Obviously, you have no clue how to explain the minute differences between background objects in the photos; in fact, you deny they exist! You claim there are large differences in the distances between background objects. You do so, even though I quoted McCamy's admission that the differences are "small," "very small," and "slight," and even though I quoted the HSCA PEP's measurements, which document that the differences are incredibly small.

Since you have no idea how to explain this problem, you once again posted your silly GIF and are posturing as though I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. Your GIF alone shows you don't even understand the basics about the problem the HSCA PEP was trying to explain.

I notice that you said nothing about the DPD backyard rifle prints released in 1992 and the fact that they are clearly from a stage in the fabrication of the backyard photos. Surely with your self-professed expertise in photographic evidence, you can provide a rational, believe explanation for why a DPD officer posed for pictures in Oswald's backyard and struck a pose that was never seen in any alleged Oswald backyard rifle photos until 1976.

And surely, since you are pretending that you know far more than I do about photographic evidence, you should have no problem refuting my article "The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos." Here's the URL again:

https://miketgriffith.com/files/fraud.htm

Jerry Organ doesn't understand why the camera's cheapness is relevant. Well, here's why: Cheap cameras, such as the Imperial Reflex, shake more easily and are not built to take high-quality pictures. The lower the camera quality, the higher the odds that your pictures will be less than optimally clear.

[Tim Nickerson]

For anyone who might be interested, I have decided to stop selling my book Hasty Judgment: Why the JFK Case Is Not Closed and to make it available free of charge online in PDF format. The book is my reply to Gerald Posner's book Case Closed. The book includes the transcript of my interview with an NSA photographic technician regarding the backyard rifle photos. Here's the link to the book:

https://miketgriffith.com/files/hastyjudgmentbook.pdf

I asked you this question before but you must have overlooked it. How have you determined that more fragments were recovered from Governor Connally's wrist alone than are missing from CE 399?