JFK Assassination Forum

There is more signed Ernest Brandt crap on the internet than there is Haygood crap. It's pathetic. For far less than he's asking, folks can have a signed photo of me in the 43rd row of the 1983 MLB All-Star Game watching Rod Carew's historic pop-up to Ozzie Smith.

Jesus, "a dog with a bone," as Mark Urik said about someone not long ago. Apparently you simply cannot admit you are wrong and let it go. I am on the verge of suffering not merely "Sandy Larsen flashbacks" but "Sandy Larsen PTSD."

Look, booby, you cited (1) the Manson case, which was tried as a conspiracy case, and in fact the Tate and LaBianca murders were committed in the same manner by the same people on two successive nights, and (2) the OJ case, where the two murders were committed at the same time and place using the same weapon and obviously by the same perpetrator. Neither is the situation with JFK and Tippit.

Yes, obviously, crimes including murders are often tried together. This is why EVERY STATE has a statute or rule that crimes may be tried together if they are part of the "same criminal episode" (or words to that effect). DUH, YES? Likewise, EVERY STATE has a statute or rule that the crimes may be SEVERED, meaning SEPARATE TRIALS, if the defendant can show a single trial would result in unfair prejudice. DUH, YES? The very existence of these rules refutes the silly arguments you keep making. DUH, YES?

Because you are an "everything is black and white" know-it-all who has no clue how lawyers think - just like Sandy Larsen! - you seemingly can't grasp that every situation is different. What the hell was your career - IRS tax auditor? It can't have been anything requiring nuanced thinking.

Sometimes the prosecution would want separate trials, sometimes the defense would want one. Sometimes the prosecution would want one, the defense two. Often neither side cares one way or the other. It's always a matter of trial strategy. A simple Google search will generate multiple appellate cases where severance was an issue, with a defendant typically arguing that severance should have been granted and he was prejudiced because it was not.

For the last time: The JFK and Tippit murders are not inevitably connected, except in the mind of an LN zealot. The evidence and witnesses would be entirely different. There would be HUGE risk that a jury would connect the two and decide that Oswald "must have" killed Tippit if he killed JFK or "must have" killed JFK if he killed Tippit. This is the potential prejudice of trying both murders together, and it is precisely the invalid connection that Bugliosi made in the mock trial (where there obviously was not going to be a motion for severance because it was just a TV show).

I can GUARANTEE you that in a trial of Oswald the defense would be arguing both that (1) two trials were required because the murders were not part of the same episode, and (2) even if they were, severance should be granted because of the potential prejudice of trying them together. If the motion were denied, the defense would pursue what is called an interlocutory appeal, meaning an appeal before the trial even begins. If the interlocutory appeal were denied, the defense would preserve the severance issue as a major one on post-trial appeal. The correctness of the defense's position would be so clear in this case that I strongly doubt the prosecution would even oppose severance.

Apparently every forum has its Pretend Lawyers. At the Ed Forum, I not only had goofy Sandy, who was some sort of civil engineer, but even Jim DiEugenio lecturing me as to how I didn't understand the rules of evidence. Yeeesh ...

For a laugh, I looked at the Education Forum after reading Benjamin Cole's post and just wow... I urge folks to read the current lead post there from the moderator W. Niederhut where he lists all the things he believes are true, and as such forbidden from further debate.. including that the World Trade Center buildings were taken down by "controlled demolition." This would be funny if it weren't so sad!

I've always wondered how a controlled demolition brought down the towers from the top down. Every controlled demolition I've ever seen blows up the foundation floor and the rest of the building collapses on top of it. The top floor is the last one to disappear into the rubble.

Keep digging because that hole is just getting deeper. The OJ trial was two murders at the same time, at the same scene, with the same weapon. The evidence in each case, including the bloody gloves, was exactly the same.

I brought up the OJ trial to illustrate how a prosecution can be completely destroyed by one unfortunate gaffe, not because the circumstances parallelled
the JFKA. I would have referenced a case where a multiple homicide in the same jurisdiction resulted in separate trials for both but I couldn't find one. Apparently, you can't either.

Perhaps you are not aware, but the prosecution in a criminal case is subject to rather strong ethical restrictions. The bloody gloves were an important piece of evidence in BOTH murders. The prosecution could not have failed to disclose them to the defense or omitted them from the second trial; if the prosecution had not introduced them, the defense would. What you call a "stupid stunt" by the prosecution was actually requested by the judge; Marcia Clark violently opposed the "stunt," but Christopher Darden went ahead both because the judge had requested it and Darden knew the defense would do it if he didn't. In any event, your notion that the gloves could have been omitted at a second trial (e.g., for the murder of Goldman) is just non-lawyerly nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.

Now you're making a strawman argument. I never even suggested the gloves would not be part of a second trial. I specifically mentioned that the prosecution would be able to apply context to the ill fitting gloves and show why the leather gloves could have shrunk since the night of the murders.

In your non-lawyerly way, you have identified why there would have been two trials with Tippit and JFK. In your scenario, the bloody gloves destroyed the prosecution's case in both murders. But it also cuts the other way: The potential prejudice to Oswald would have been the jury making a connection from the Tippit murder to the JFK murder, even though the evidence and witnesses in those cases would have been entirely different: "We think he killed Tippit; ergo, he must have killed JFK" - precisely the invalid connection that Bugliosi made in the mock trial.

I am having "Sandy Larsen flashbacks." Attempting to engage in a lawyerly discussion with a Perry Mason fan who thinks 20 episodes have made him a lawyer is something of a surreal experience. Give it up; you're making a fool of yourself.

You continue to insist that there would have been separate trials for the JFK and Tippit murders despite not being able to cite a single case of multiple homicides in the same jurisdiction in which that was done. I have cited two high profile multiple homicides in which a single trial was held for multiple homicides, one of which also had multiple defendants. I'm sure if I eat my Wheaties I can find dozens more cases of multiple homicides resulting in a single trial. I doubt you can find one in which multiple homicides were committed in the same city on the same day which resulted in separate trials. It seems a rather ludicrous proposition to me.

    Everybody seems to have forgotten about Biden's VP.  Kamala claimed she had lunch with "Joe" almost everyday at the White House. That the guy was "running rings around everybody". Then she sticks the knife in his back in order to try and take his job. These people routinely eat each other up as they climb the ladder.

Jill stuck the knife into the backs of Pelosi and Obama when 10 minutes have Joe announced he was dropping out, he announced he was endorsing Kamala. I'm sure that was Jill's doing. Joe wouldn't have had the mental capacity to do that. Pelosi and Obama didn't want Kamala. They wanted a mini-primary. The endorsement killed that idea. Jill didn't do that for Kamala. The two couldn't stand each other. She did as an FU to Pelosi and Obama for forcing Joe out.