If I Had Planned The Conspiracy ...

[Mitch Todd]

UNATTENDED.  That alone is enough to break any hope of a chain of custody.

The question you keep avoiding is ON WHAT BASIS did McDonald or Carroll know that they were initialing the same gun that they handled? That's the whole point of evidence handling rules and documenting chains of custody.  And why did Bentley initial it at all?  He didn't even handle it.  What should have happened is that the person who recovered the evidence should have marked it immediately and turned it directly over to the evidence locker.

How would he know that if the revolver itself wasn't in his sight the entire time?  And what is your evidence Carroll was even with Hill the entire time?  You keep asserting this, but it is merely an assumption.

JI: UNATTENDED.  That alone is enough to break any hope of a chain of custody.

"Sitting on a desk" does not itself indicate "UNATTENDED" "UNATTENDED" is simply your own presumption. When Westbrook sees the pistol on the desktop, he asks Hill, et al, about it. That implies that Hill, et al, were right there with it. 


JI: And why did Bentley initial it at all?

It doesn't matter whether or not  Bentley initialed it. Only that Carroll and Hill did.


That's the whole point of evidence handling rules and documenting chains of custody

What "evidence handling rules" are you talking about? The ones that you and Martin seem to enjoy inventing?


JI: What should have happened is that the person who recovered the evidence should have marked it immediately and turned it directly over to the evidence locker.
 
Is this another one of those "evidence handling rules" that keep appearing out of thin air? When did you become an expert at 1963 judicial procedure?


How would he know that if the revolver itself wasn't in his sight the entire time?  And what is your evidence Carroll was even with Hill the entire time?  You keep asserting this, but it is merely an assumption.

I've already pointed out earlier in this thread the testimony that puts Carroll with Hill until the gun was turned over.
 

[John Iacoletti]

"Sitting on a desk" does not itself indicate "UNATTENDED" "UNATTENDED" is simply your own presumption. When Westbrook sees the pistol on the desktop, he asks Hill, et al, about it. That implies that Hill, et al, were right there with it. 

When did Westbrook say that when he saw the gun on the desk he asked Hill about it?

Is this another one of those "evidence handling rules" that keep appearing out of thin air? When did you become an expert at 1963 judicial procedure?

I never claimed to be an expert.  The federal rules of evidence require that the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is.  And the question you keep avoiding is ON WHAT BASIS did McDonald or Carroll know that they were initialing the same gun that they handled?  The police must have known enough about preserving chain of custody to bother to scratch their initials at all, even if it was a half-assed attempt after-the fact.

Instead of quibbling about what "1963 procedures" were, how about answering how the "procedures" they did use did anything to make the evidence authenticatable?

I've already pointed out earlier in this thread the testimony that puts Carroll with Hill until the gun was turned over.

Except it does nothing of the kind.  It's pure assumption on your part.

[Tom Graves]

On what basis did McDonald or Carroll know that they were initialing the same gun that they handled?  The police must have known enough about preserving chain of custody to bother to scratch their initials at all (sic), even if it was a half-assed attempt after-the fact.

Iacoletti,

Do you think Officers McDonald and Carroll wittingly or unwittingly initialed a Smith & Wesson revolver with an oversize bore on 11/22/63 that the evil, evil Deep State bad guys, having tied in advance paper-work-wise to poor widdle Patsy Oswald, planted on him or did a switcheroo on at some point after the Texas Theater incident?