CTers: Do yourself a favor and focus on plausibility

[John Corbett]

That's a good thing. It keeps me from getting silly ideas for which there is no evidence. CTs continue to assume there was a conspiracy despite never providing any evidence of such.
Yes, that is what I said. 
Only one man who committed a murder after the JFKA was executed for his crime and that was a man who chose not to appeal his sentence. Everyone else who was on death row extended the appeals process beyond 1967 when there was a de facto moratorium on executions because of cases working their way up to SCOTUS. The only way Oswald would have been executed would have been if he chose not to take advantage of the appeals process and accepted his death sentence.
As far as the JFKA is concerned, "plausible conspiracy theories" is an oxymoron. No one has ever come up with one for which there is any evidence. There are lots of make believe conspiracy theories.
Maybe you can share one with us. The only one that is even theoretical/y possible is one in which Oswald conspired with maybe one or two individuals for which no evidence was ever found. In that circumstance, the evidence would be exactly what it is, but since there is no evidence of such a small conspiracy and the fact Oswald was a loner his whole life, I see no reason to believe even a small conspiracy existed.
Oh, Christ. Are you still peddling that old wives' tale. The bullet was not nearly pristine. It was flattened at the base indicating it was tumbling when it first struck bone. Full metal jacket bullets are designed not to deform when passing through soft tissue which CE399 did when it went through JFK's torso. Such a bullet tumbles upon exiting which has been shown experimentally. The shape of the entry wound on JBC's back indicates it did not enter nose first.   The only way that happens is if the bullet had struck something else first, like JFK's torso.
Where the hell are you going with this. Are you saying the bullet that went through his clothing isn't the one that entered his back. That would require a real Magic Bullet.
Landis claim is quite dubious given that he waited 60 years to tell anybody about it and it would make him look like an idiot because anyone with an ounce of sense would know that was a really important piece of evidence. Even if it is true, it does nothing to invalidate the SBT.
JBC rejected the SBT because he had been told JFK was hit by the first shot and he knew he had been hit by the second shot. It follows that if JFK was hit by the second shot, which he was, then they were both hit by the same shot.
Marrion Baker was on Houston St. when the shots were fired. How the hell would he know which shots hit JFK and JBC.
You could prove me wrong by presenting evidence of your goofy theories but you never do.
Supposed? You really are reaching now.
That is true but the bad news is you are really bad at weighing evidence as you have just demonstrated. Don't feel too bad. Most CTs have the same problem. Do you ever bother to think these things through before you post them. I feel like I'm back in 1991 debunking the same old nonsense I was dealing with back then.
It seems to me the first step should be to come up with a plausible conspiracy theory supported by evidence which no one ever has.

[John Corbett]

"What about Larry Hancock and John Newman?" screams the peanut gallery. "They know way more than you, bub."

Well, they know way more about some JFKA-related things, I'm sure. I think Newman and his crowd are driven by motives other than trying to solve the JFKA. There is no way the conspiracy they posit - whatever the hell it is - has any real-world plausibility. It's all dark intrigue and speculation, peppered with names and acronyms and documents until your eyes glaze over (or at least mine do). IMHO, they'll never connect it to Dealey Plaza.

Larry Hancock's work would fit into my category 4 and is certainly more plausible than Newman's. As with Newman, however, you are overwhelmed with names and acronyms and whatnot, and it's all just too elaborate for me to find it believable, nor have I seen anything convincingly tying Oswald into the plot.

I always remind myself and others that Newman is also the author of Quest for the Kingdom: The Secret Teachings of Jesus in the Light of Yogic Mysticism, a weird but undeniably scholarly book that I have never even seen mentioned in my vast Christian-oriented reading. Hancock is the author of Unidentified; The National Security Problem of UFOs, which I likewise have never even seen mentioned in my vast UFO-oriented reading. This is not to minimize their work - I found Newman's book fascinating - but just to emphasize that though they may seem to be "major figures" in the JFKA community they are pretty much fringe figures in other areas into which they have waded.

Just my $0.02 worth and where I would - and do - focus my attention if I were open to JFKA conspiracy theories.

P.S. - I'm not going to try to deal with John C.'s goofy formatting, but there were 46 executions between 1963 and 1967. WHAT THE HELL is the point, other than arguing for the sake of arguing? No one involved in the JFKA was thinking, "Hey, the way the law is trending we may only spend life in prison instead of being executed." What a weirdo.

Completely irrelevant. All of those executions were for murders committed prior to the JFKA and the condemned had run out their appeals process. Oswald would have had the same multi-layered appeals process available to him as the other murderers. For a comparison, the In Cold Blood murderers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock committed their gruesome murders in November of 1959 and weren't executed until April of 1965. A similar length appeals process for Oswald would have extended to 1969, when there was a moratorium on executions so Oswald would have still been on death row in 1972 when SCOTUS spared the life of all prisoners on death row and commuted their sentences to life in prison. It is extremely unlikely Oswald would have been executed had Jack Ruby not shot him.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

FYI, there were five executions done in Texas in 1964. All were black men and two did not involve murder.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Texas,_1960%E2%80%931964#cite_note-5

[Michael T. Griffith]

Given that surveys have repeatedly shown that only 1/4 to 1/3 of the Western world believes the lone-gunman theory, you and your fellow WC apologists are the ones who need to focus on plausibility.

I find it so curious that you guys talk like you represent the mainstream, the majority, and that those who posit a conspiracy in the case are a fringe minority, when in fact your view is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world, when we now know that even three members of the WC did not buy the Commission's story, and when the last official U.S. Government investigation--the HSCA--concluded that the WC failed to follow up on evidence that indicated conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that four shots were fired, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, that Silvia Odio's account of an anti-Castro Cuban trying to frame Oswald for the assassination weeks before the event was credible, that Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the police basement to shoot Oswald, that Ruby lied about why he shot Oswald, etc., etc.

[Lance Payette]

I really am going on hiatus after this post. I just do not have this sort of time for the JFKA follies, much as I enjoy reading my own thoughts. 

All I'm doing here is thinking out loud - as one who has organized and presented cases, just thinking how I would assemble a plausible conspiracy scenario. If you live and breathe Harvey and Lee or think MTG is the epitome of rationality - please, go for it.

A plausible conspiracy can be described in which nothing takes place in Dealey Plaza other than what the LN narrative posits. It's hard for me to believe that sophisticated conspirators would entrust the entire operation to Oswald and his $20 M-C, or that the operation would have unfolded as it did, but it's possible.

Regarding the SBT and whatnot: I am certainly not going to enter THAT debate. For starters, I'm not qualified. I'm just thinking out loud - the stuff that has always nagged at me.

It has always seemed to me that the supposed "early shot" and the SBT were and are motivated in part to avoid a conspiracy, as opposed to being entirely evidence-based. I think an excellent case can be and has been made that Oswald fired only two shots. As Jack Nessan has pointed out, the LN narrative can easily accommodate this; there simply was no early shot - the SBT and the head shot were it. But then we have the witnesses who insist there were two shots that were almost simultaneous. Were these two shots the ones that the SBT has merged into one, definitely meaning two gunmen? Were they the head shot and a shot almost simultaneous with it, as I think Josiah Thompson believes - definitely meaning two gunmen? It does seem to me that the SBT has some implausibilities as I've described. I don't know how it all hashes out and don't feel obligated to try. I simply said that I would focus on this rather than other supposed (and more unlikely) "conspiracy" aspects of Dealey Plaza if I were assembling a conspiracy theory.

FWIW, John Orr's Mafia theory posits a shot by Oswald at Z204 that went through JFK's back and neck and exited the car. He posits a second shot by Oswald at Z236 that strikes JBC. He posits the head shot at Z312 by a different gunman, with a fragment causing JBC's wrist wound. He posits a third shot by Oswald at Z326 that strikes the pavement left of the car, but he admits this is tentative. Is this solid reasoning? I don't know. But it is what I'm talking about when I say a "plausible" conspiracy theory. You are free to scream "It's not plausible AT ALL!" Maybe it's not, but it's certainly an example of a tight, minimalist theory that is more plausible and well-thought-out than most of the CT stuff.

https://www.mountainrivercabins.com/JohnOrrReport.pdf

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

Fair enough, though I think LHO's confederates were either lower-level G-2'ers, likely acting on their own initiative...or

...hanger-on Alpha-66'ers, keeping in mind Alpha-66 had been penetrated by G-2, and there were double agents in Alpha-66. They had a house in Dallas, adding to the mix. There is a lone eyewitness account of LHO at the Alpha 66 house, on Harlandale in Dallas.

In fact, Rolando Cubela, indisputably given a poison pen by the CIA on 11.22.63, with which he was to assassinate Castro, is thought by many to have been a double agent. This is murky stuff.

Such a small, informal, ad hoc JFKA plot, involving three people (including LHO) with no written record, would be hard to detect. And the WC was, in general, prosecuting the LNT-SBT narrative.

Arlen Specter's lawyerly reasoning on the SBT is a work of art. Basically he said, "If we assume one bullet missed the limo, then the SBT is the only remaining explanation." He reasoned from a premise.

The CIA, in general, would be averse to a JFKA investigation, if suspected anti-Castro assets, or double-agents were in the brew.

It appears George Joaniddes wanted to put the kibosh on the HSCA's look-see into MC. Blakey thought so, after the fact.

OTOH, I do not see much of connection between LHO and the Mafia.

But who knows?

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

[John Corbett]

FYI, there were five executions done in Texas in 1964. All were black men and two did not involve murder.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Texas,_1960%E2%80%931964#cite_note-5

Your chart doesn't show the date of the crime so it doesn't give us a clue as to the length of the appeals process. I have little doubt Oswald would have been convicted of a double homicide and sentenced to death but I have serious doubt his sentence would have been carried out before SCOTUS vacated all existing death penalty statutes in 1972. There is a real possibility an 86 year old Oswald would still be sneering at us from his jail cell in Texas.