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The quote I ancient in the title of this review came from the lips of Mrs. Ruth Paine in 1986, and can be heard on this DVD. Mrs. Paine was one of the very few people in the world who knew Mr. and Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald fairly well honest prior to November 22, 1963, which was the Friday when Lee Oswald took a gun to work and assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
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In July of 1986, Mrs. Paine was one of several people who travelled from America to London in order to participate in a TV “docu-trial” (”ON TRIAL: LEE HARVEY OSWALD”), a simulated courtroom trial produced by “London Weekend Television”.
The mock trial was 21 hours long, but approximately 75% of that filmed footage was left on the cutting-room floor, with the 21 hours’ worth of trial material being trimmed down to a diminutive more than 5 hours for its current two-part “Showtime” cable-TV broadcast on November 21 and 22, 1986.
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This 2-Disc DVD edition of “On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald” contains the entire uncut docu-trial as it was originally aired in November 1986 by the Showtime network in the United States (5+ hours of programming) .
However, some portions of the fresh Showtime broadcast featuring host Edwin Newman and other commentators (such as Jack Anderson, Ramsey Clark, and Alan Dershowitz) have not been included on this DVD.
Very brief interview snippets with the two lead attorneys enthusiastic in the trial (Vincent Bugliosi and Gerry Spence) that were aired on TV in ‘86 have also been removed for this DVD presentation. But all of the in-the-courtroom footage from the unique ‘86 Showtime broadcast appears to be intact and included in this MPI Home Video version.
Footnote regarding running time — Each of the two DVDs in this plot has an unsuitable (too short) running time shown on it. Based on the printed information on the discs, the total urge time is only 4 hours and 8 minutes. But the total time for both DVDs is actually 5 hours and 7 minutes, which almost certainly represents the whole program as it first aired on Showtime (minus some of the wraparound segments with Edwin Newman, et al) .*
* = At least one subsequent airing of this docu-trial on a different U.S. network (in 1988), however, does enjoy additional courtroom footage that is not included in this Showtime/MPI version.
But it’s not entirely surprising that alternate versions of this lengthy program were produced, featuring different editing, given the fact that more than three-fourths of the filmed trial was edited out in the first dwelling (including the entire testimony of at least one behold, Jack Tatum) .
Another packaging error can be found on the attend screen of this MPI DVD, where we collect this absurdly-overstated blurb — “On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald recalls all of the surviving witnesses…”.
But quite obviously, as of July 1986 (when the Oswald TV trial took residence), more than unprejudiced the 21 people who took the eye stand at this mock trial were composed among the living (as far as assassination-related witnesses are concerned) .
No witnesses were subpoenaed, however. The people who took the study stand at the mock trial did so voluntarily. They were not being forced to appear. So, that fact certainly must have miniature the length of the observe lists for both the defense and the prosecution to a expansive degree.
“On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald” has the feel of a valid trial (although, of course, it isn’t, since the defendant in the case, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself shot and killed by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby impartial two days after President Kennedy was murdered) ….with a steady consider sitting on the bench in the London courtroom, 12 loyal Dallas jurors sitting in the jury box, 21 dependable sworn-in witnesses (connected in various ways to the JFK and/or J.D. Tippit slay cases) taking the search for stand to testify on behalf of either the prosecution or the defense, and two prominent U.S. trial attorneys presenting their cases in front of the jury — Vincent T. Bugliosi for the prosecution (representing the “U.S. Government”) and Gerry Spence representing the deceased defendant, Lee Oswald.
Mr. Bugliosi, in 2005, said it was his thought that the 1986 television docu-trial was “the closest thing to a trial that Lee Harvey Oswald ever had or will have”. And after having watched that trial many times since ‘86, I have to fully concur with Vince’s assessment as well.
This simulated trial was the springboard that led Bugliosi to write his titanic and all-encompassing book on the JFK assassination, “Reclaiming History”, which took Vince more than 20 years to research and write. The book was finally published in May 2007.
As mentioned previously, Ruth Paine was among the 21 witnesses who testified at the TV docu-trial, and Paine’s testimony is among the most riveting and enlightening during the five-hour program. Even after 23 years, the raw emotion of that day help in 1963 smooth resonates deeply within her. Ruth’s testimony is worth the label of this DVD status alone.
Another standout part of “On Trial” comes during the latter fraction of the program, when eminent conspiracy theorist and House Hold Committee on Assassinations [HSCA] member Dr. Cyril H. Wecht takes the sight stand to face off against Vince Bugliosi.
The sparks launch to hover when Bugliosi wants Dr. Wecht to account for what happened to the intact bullet that exited President Kennedy’s throat, heading downward and forward, directly toward Governor John Connally in the limousine.
Although Wecht agrees with Bugliosi that the bullet did, indeed, go completely through JFK’s body without deviating from its unusual flight path, Cyril also contends that the bullet did not strike Governor Connally at all. Instead, evidently it vanished into thin air without a heed. (Talk about a “magic bullet”.)
Other witnesses who effect in an appearance include (among a few others) : Charles Brehm, Buell Wesley Frazier, Dallas police officer Marrion Baker (who actually stopped Oswald and spoke to him inside the Texas School Book Depository within minutes of JFK’s assassination), Harold Norman, Johnny Brewer, Nelson Delgado, Edwin Lopez, Seth Kantor, Ted Callaway, Eugene Boone (the deputy sheriff who first discovered Oswald’s rifle on the sixth floor of the Depository), William Newman, Dr. Vincent Guinn, Dr. Charles Petty, and FBI agent James Hosty (who was aware of Oswald’s presence in Dallas weeks prior to 11/22/63) .
A corpulent DVD chapter/witness list is provided later in this review.
Vince Bugliosi puts on a strong prosecutor’s case against Oswald in “On Trial”, relying heavily, of course, on the wide array of physical and circumstantial evidence that easily shows Oswald to be guilty of not only killing President Kennedy, but also of murdering a second man on November 22, 1963 — Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, who was shot four times by Oswald on 10th Street in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, approximately 45 minutes after Kennedy was slain honest in front of Oswald’s workplace on Elm Street.
Gerry Spence, on the other hand, relies mainly on guesswork, unsupportable theories, and “what if” scenarios in his attempted (and anemic) defense of his “client”, Lee H. Oswald.
Mr. Spence is a suited showman, though, I must say that. He’s fun to search for in the courtroom. And so is Bugliosi, I might add. But Spence’s choice of witnesses to try and buttress his case for conspiracy was rather conventional, to say the least, with only 7 witnesses called to the stand (per the final 5-hour version of the trial seen on Showtime anyway), with one of those seven being the comical Tom Tilson.
Mr. Tilson, who was a Dallas police officer in 1963, tells the jury a crazy record about how Jack Ruby killed President Kennedy, with Tilson witnessing Ruby’s getaway fair after the assassination.
Not all of Tilson’s testimony was shown on TV, however. Here’s the text of a share of Mr. Tilson’s testimony that didn’t invent the final television crop (and it’s a howl too) . The following paragraph comes directly from Vincent Bugliosi’s outstanding and comprehensive book on the assassination, “Reclaiming History”:
“I asked Tilson why, if he believed the man he pursued was Ruby, didn’t he give Dallas homicide Ruby’s name when he called them with his information? Unbelievably, Tilson answered, ‘Well, I couldn’t. Somebody might go procure Jack Ruby and he might not have been guilty.’ (Translation: Never pursue any suspect to a crime because there’s always a chance the suspect might not be guilty.) ” — Vincent T. Bugliosi; Page 879 of “Reclaiming History: The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy” (W.W. Norton & Company) (c.2007)
~LOL break~
In the extinguish, thankfully, the right evidence against the defendant is able to conquer the fanciful “what ifs” in the minds of the jurors, and after six hours of deliberations, Lee Harvey Oswald was declared “Guilty” at the conclusion of the mock trial.
Three of those jurors, however, weren’t convinced that there was no “conspiracy” to cancel the President; but all twelve of them were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee Oswald did, in fact, end John Kennedy.
========================
Here are a few random excerpts that can be found in “On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald”:
“The evidence that will be presented at this trial will indicate that there is no substance to the persistent charge by these critics that Lee Harvey Oswald was honest a patsy, dwelling up to consume the tumble by some justify conspiracy. We examine the evidence — ALL of the evidence — to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.” — VINCENT BUGLIOSI (Opening Statement)
—————-
VINCENT BUGLIOSI — “Mr. Frazier, is it lawful that you paid hardly any attention to this bag? ”
BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER — “That is honest.”
BUGLIOSI — “So the bag could have been protruding out in front of his [Oswald's] body, and you wouldn’t have been able to spy it, is that legal? ”
FRAZIER — “That is accurate.”
—————-
BUGLIOSI — “Did it sound to you like a rifle was being fired directly above you? ”
HAROLD NORMAN — “Yes sir.”
BUGLIOSI — “Was there any OTHER reason, in addition to the sound of the rifle, any other reason why you believed the shots were coming from directly above you? ”
NORMAN — “Yes sir.”
BUGLIOSI — “And what is that? ”
NORMAN — “Because I could hear the empty hulls–that’s what I call them–hit the floor; and I could hear the scoot action of the rifle being pushed attend and forward.”
BUGLIOSI — “You’re familiar with a bolt-action rifle? ”
NORMAN — “Yes sir.”
—————-
BUGLIOSI — “What you’re saying is that from your Neutron Activation Analysis, there may have been fifty people firing at President Kennedy that day….but if there were, they all missed….ONLY bullets fired from Oswald’s Carcano rifle hit the President. Is that true? ”
DR. VINCENT P. GUINN — “That’s a lawful statement; yes.”
—————-
BUGLIOSI — “Mr. Delgado, I absorb you testified before the Warren Commission, that on the rifle range Oswald was kind of a joke, a aesthetic stout joke.”
NELSON DELGADO [served with Oswald in the Marines] — “Yes, he was.” ….
BUGLIOSI — “Are you aware that in 1956, when Oswald first joined the Marines, and was going through Basic Training, he fired a 212 on the rifle range with an M-1 rifle, which made him a ’sharpshooter’ at that time — are you aware of that? ”
DELGADO — “Yes.”
BUGLIOSI — “Given the fact that Oswald was about to secure out of the Marines when he was in your unit, and the fact that he showed no interest in firing on the range — you don’t attribute his dreadful showing on the range to his being a unpleasant shot? ”
DELGADO — “No.”
BUGLIOSI — “He could have done better, you felt, if he tried? ”
DELGADO — “Certainly.”
—————-
BUGLIOSI — “While he [Lee Oswald] was at your home did he ask you for any curtain rods? ”
RUTH PAINE — “No, he didn’t.” ….
BUGLIOSI — “Now you, in fact, DID have some curtain rods in the garage, is that fair? ”
PAINE — “In the garage…yes.”
BUGLIOSI — “After the assassination, they were collected there.”
PAINE — “Yes, that’s legal.”
—————-
BUGLIOSI — “Seems to me, Doctor, that by well-known implication they are either hopelessly and utterly incompetent, or they deliberately suppressed the truth from the American public. Is that right? ”
DR. CYRIL WECHT — “There is a third alternative, which would be a hybrid to some extent of the deliberate suppression, sir…”
BUGLIOSI — “So, of the nine pathologists, Doctor Wecht, you’re the only one that had the honor and the integrity and the professional responsibility to state the truth to the American people! Is that suitable, Doctor!? ”
WECHT — “I’ll catch to achieve it this method….I’m the only one who had the courage to say that the King was nude, and had no clothes on….yes.”
BUGLIOSI — “No further questions.”
—————-
“So we KNOW, not objective beyond a reasonable doubt, we know beyond ALL doubt THAT OSWALD’S RIFLE WAS THE Cancel WEAPON. …. And it’s clear that Oswald carried that rifle into the building that day in that huge brown paper bag. It couldn’t be more certain. As far as Mr. Frazier’s testimony about Oswald carrying the bag under his armpit, he conceded he never paid finish attention to fair how Oswald was carrying that bag. He didn’t have any reason to.
“At this point if we had nothing else….nothing else….how considerable do you need? ….if we had NOTHING else….this would be enough to exhibit Oswald’s guilt beyond all REASONABLE doubt. But there’s so grand more. ….
“How, in fact, if Oswald were innocent, did they Come By Oswald, within forty-five minutes of the assassination, to assassinate Officer Tippit? Or was he framed for that kill too?! ….
“As surely as I am standing here, as surely as night follows day, Lee Harvey Oswald–acting alone–was responsible for the execute of President John F. Kennedy.” — VINCENT BUGLIOSI (Closing Arguments)
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ABOUT THE DVDs:
The video and audio quality on these DVDs is unprejudiced about as perfect as anybody could hope for. The report looks great, probably as superior as it did when the program first aired in 1986.
There are no audio commentaries or additional bonus features on either of the two discs in this DVD package. It would have been spacious if a commentary track by Vince Bugliosi could have been included, but it wasn’t. But I was surprised to catch that English subtitles have been included on these DVDs, which could be considered kind of a “mini bonus” of sorts.
Some more disc data:
2-Disc state.
Single-sided discs.
Video: Full-Frame (1.33:1) . In color.
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.
Total Rush Time: 307 minutes.
Menus: Non-animated; looped music on the Main Menu.
Paper Enclosures: None.
========================
DVD CHAPTER LIST:
DISC ONE:
1. Introduction (With Edwin Newman)
2. Opening Statement: The Prosecution
3. Opening Statement: The Defense
4. Prosecution, 1st Witness: Buell Frazier
5. Prosecution, 2nd Witness: Charles Brehm
6. Prosecution, 3rd Witness: Harold Norman
7. Prosecution, 4th Witness: Eugene Boone
8. Prosecution, 5th Witness: Marrion Baker
9. Prosecution, 6th Witness: Ted Callaway
10. View Recall: Buell Frazier
11. Prosecution, 7th Witness: Jack Brewer
12. Prosecution, 8th Witness: Cecil Kirk
13. Prosecution, 9th Witness: Dr. Charles Petty
14. Prosecution, 10th Witness: Monty Lutz
15. Prosecution, 11th Witness: Dr. Vincent Guinn
16. Prosecution, 12th Witness: Lyndal Shaneyfelt
17. Prosecution, 13th Witness: Nelson Delgado
18. Prosecution, 14th Witness: Ruth Paine
DISC TWO:
1. Defense, 1st Witness: Bill Newman
2. Defense, 2nd Witness: Tom Tilson
3. Defense, 3rd Witness: Dr. Cyril Wecht
4. Defense, 4th Witness: Paul O’Connor
5. Defense, 5th Witness: James Hosty
6. Defense, 6th Witness: Edwin Lopez
7. Defense, 7th Witness: Seth Kantor
8. Final Summation: The Prosecution
9. Final Summation: The Defense
10. Final Rebuttal: The Prosecution
11. The Verdict
========================
A FINAL WORD:
Although it wasn’t a “actual” trial (quite obviously), “On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald” did a nice job (at least partially) of filling a gap that had long been in need of filling — and that is: to prove the evidence against Lee Oswald in a courtroom setting, complete with the adversarial process of United States law on beefy indicate (i.e., the prosecution vs. the defense) .
Lee Harvey Oswald, posthumously, had his day in court. Some conspiracy theorists gain that the 1986 mock trial was nothing but a “sham”, a “farce”, a “fictional TV drama” with no accurate facts or truths being brought out in the courtroom.
I, however, would strongly disagree with such assertions regarding “On Trial”. While not binding as an sincere “Guilty” verdict in the case against Oswald, the fact remains that a lot of Staunch evidence, presented by Steady witnesses, came to light in that London courtroom.
And whether Oswald was alive or not to defend himself against this evidence, it is evidence that collected exists all the same. And it’s evidence that convicted Lee Harvey Oswald of a Presidential assassination in the eyes of twelve Dallas citizens in 1986. And, in my conception, that’s a nice gap in the world of “JFK Assassination Lore” to have filled in.
David Von Pein
October 2008
I purchased this DVD after reading the lengthy book, “Reclaiming History” by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor in the mock trial presented here. Like many people I have always believed in the probable existence of a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, nevertheless, my mind was changed after reading the very lengthy Bugliosi book. Frankly, I was unaware that a mock trial had ever taken location until reading of it in this book. Learning that Gerry Spence had been the defense attorney, and being an attorney myself, I was very fervent to collect a chance to glimpse these two attorneys base swords in a courtroom.
Unfortunately from an attorney’s perspective, this DVD presentation of the mock trial was disappointing. From the very beginning I was scared at the degree to which Mr. Bugliosi persisted in leading his witnesses, seemingly with no objection from Mr. Spence. I realize that leading the witnesses in a mock trial for television might be simply a means of saving time, but when Mr. Spence did finally object, he did so with a statement that he did not usually object to his opponent leading witnesses during trial testimony. Somehow I found this statement difficult to gain.
Naturally the trial made spend of the Zapruder film. Unfortunately, however, the viewer was provided with no plan of the diagrams of the wounds or bullet paths that played so primary a role in determining whether Oswald acted alone or only as share of a conspiracy. I know that the jurors in the mock trial were made aware of those photos and diagrams since I saw some of the blow-ups of them in the courtroom. Perhaps if I had not seen them or already known of their existence, I would not have felt as cheated as a viewer by not having them presented as fraction of the trial on the DVD.
Lastly I must comment on the brevity of the closing arguments presented by both the prosecution and the defense in this DVD. Again, I notice that there are time constraints when presenting a trial in a televised setting; nevertheless, considering that this might have been “The Trial of the Century” shouldn’t we have expected the prosecutor to provide a worthy longer closing argument than was shown here?
Naturally Mr. Bugliosi considered his case to have been one of overwhelming evidence of guilt but wasn’t he taking a gargantuan risk by not spending more time referring to the evidence that had been presented to the jury than he did here? Of course had he done so, he would probably have mentioned witnesses and items of evidence that the jury had seen but which had not been section of what was seen by the DVD viewer. The jarring do that this might have had upon the viewer might have been lessened somewhat had there been a statement at the beginning of each disc reminding the viewer that they were seeing a presentation that had been edited from the worthy longer presentation that had been made before the mock jury.
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