If I had planned the conspiracy ...

[Mitch Todd]

And even if the chain of custody is a mess, that does not itself actually invalidate item evidence.

As the chain of custody is one of the main ways to authenticate a piece of evidence. Without authentication, how can you still consider an item valid evidence?

The problem is, I keep seeing people trying to use "authentication" as some kind of Get Out of Jail Free card. The MO for this is to move goalposts or otherwise demand an unreasonable level of proof, proclaim the evidence to be "unauthenticated," then leap headlong the conclusion that the item in evidence must then be fabricated or otherwise invalid. Reliance on such is just wishful thinking: lack of formal authentication does not in itself invalidate evidence.


 

[Dan O'meara]

You're starting to sound like a Harvey & Lee fan. Let us hope not.

What a truly bizarre thing to say.

To repeat for the last time: We don't know if any evidence has a fatally defective chain of custody until the prosecution attempts to introduce it into evidence, by which time the prosecution will have assembled what it believes to be an adequate chain. You can't simply look at documents or what one witness said to the WC and declare there is a defective chain of custody. Defects have to rise to the level of creating genuine doubt that what is offered into evidence is not what was taken into evidence at the time or has otherwise been altered.

I've asked you to name a single piece of evidence in the JFK case, other than the rifle, that doesn't have a defective chain of custody.
You claim to know all about this case, so should be familiar with the various chains of custody relating to this case.
If you do genuinely know about this case you'll know that there isn't a single piece of relevant evidence that doesn't have a defective chain of custody.
It was kind of a trick question.

So you've side-stepped the issue with this statement:

"We don't know if any evidence has a fatally defective chain of custody until the prosecution attempts to introduce it into evidence, by which time the prosecution will have assembled what it believes to be an adequate chain."

Do you stand by this statement as far as the JFK case is concerned?
As I understand it you are a lawyer whereas I have zero experience and little knowledge of the Justice System and its particulars but I don't accept this statement.
For instance, it is a fact that CE399 has a defective chain of custody.

This was a sudden, unanticipated, chaotic event. It is not surprising that documents and memories were all over the map. Again, it always seems to me the CTers have a very artificial, non-real-world perspective, as though law enforcement in these circumstances should have been operating with one eye on how everything might look to CTers with CT microscopes 10, 30 and 60 years later. The fact that a defense attorney might be able to poke holes (raise doubts) about an item of evidence does not mean there is a fatal defect in the chain of evidence.

"This was a sudden, unanticipated, chaotic event."
This sounds like a lot of murders.
I don't think we need to accuse law enforcement of forgetting the basics in all the 'chaos'.
We don't need to imagine they forgot what a chain of custody was.
We should remember that this was the most important case that any of these men had ever worked on and that they were making their very best effort.

"The fact that a defense attorney might be able to poke holes (raise doubts) about an item of evidence does not mean there is a fatal defect in the chain of evidence."

You don't really seem to understand what's going on here, which is surprising considering your lawyerly claims.
Nobody is talking about inventing a fatal defect in the chain of evidence by poking holes about an item of evidence (not being a lawyer I'm unfamiliar with this type of jargon)
The doubts about an item of evidence are being raised BECAUSE the chain of custody is defective!

The chain of custody for every single piece of evidence (other than the rifle) in the JFK case is defective.
What do you think of them apples?

[Martin Weidmann]

The problem is, I keep seeing people trying to use "authentication" as some kind of Get Out of Jail Free card. The MO for this is to move goalposts or otherwise demand an unreasonable level of proof, proclaim the evidence to be "unauthenticated," then leap headlong the conclusion that the item in evidence must then be fabricated or otherwise invalid. Reliance on such is just wishful thinking: lack of formal authentication does not in itself invalidate evidence.

I keep seeing people trying to use "authentication" as some kind of Get Out of Jail Free card.

Remarkable! Evidence is authentic or it isn't. There is nothing inbetween.

 Asking for authentication isn't a "Get out of jail free" thing, it's about ensuring that a piece of evidence is authentic and thus valid to support a claim of guilt!


The MO for this is to move goalposts or otherwise demand an unreasonable level of proof,

lack of formal authentication does not in itself invalidate evidence.

Asking for authenticated evidence is an unreasonable level of proof? Really? So, are we supposed to accept any evidence regardless if it's authentic or not?

[Mitch Todd]

I keep seeing people trying to use "authentication" as some kind of Get Out of Jail Free card.

Remarkable! Evidence is authentic or it isn't. This is nothing inbetween.

 Asking for authentication isn't a "Get out if jail free" thing, it's about ensuring that a piece of evidence is authentic and thus valid to support a claim of guilt!


The MO for this is to move goalposts or otherwise demand an unreasonable level of proof,

lack of formal authentication does not in itself invalidate evidence.

Asking for authenticated evidence is an unreasonable level of proof? Really? So, are we supposed to accept any evidence regardless if it's authentic or not?

MW: Evidence is authentic or it isn't. This is nothing inbetween.

"Authentic" and "authenticated" are two parallel concepts that are not necessarily the same thing. An authentic item is always authentic whether or not it has been authenticated. My beef is with the deliberate confusion of these two concepts. A related issue is the inevitable appearance That Guy who invariably demands to apply a highly personal standard for authentication. Said highly personal standard is almost always specifically designed to set the bar impractically high, and rarely resembles what is actually done in practice.  The purpose of all this is to allow That Guy to simply ignore hostile evidence by trying to use a bogus authentication standard to unilaterally declare that the hostile evidence is "unauthenticated," then equating "unauthenticated" with "invalid" 

[Martin Weidmann]

MW: Evidence is authentic or it isn't. This is nothing inbetween.

"Authentic" and "authenticated" are two parallel concepts that are not necessarily the same thing. An authentic item is always authentic whether or not it has been authenticated. My beef is with the deliberate confusion of these two concepts. A related issue is the inevitable appearance That Guy who invariably demands to apply a highly personal standard for authentication. Said highly personal standard is almost always specifically designed to set the bar impractically high, and rarely resembles what is actually done in practice.  The purpose of all this is to allow That Guy to simply ignore hostile evidence by trying to use a bogus authentication standard to unilaterally declare that the hostile evidence is "unauthenticated," then equating "unauthenticated" with "invalid"

"Authentic" and "authenticated" are two parallel concepts that are not necessarily the same thing. An authentic item is always authentic whether or not it has been authenticated.

Agreed, but for something to be used as evidence of guilt, it will have to be authenticated.

A related issue is the inevitable appearance That Guy who invariably demands to apply a highly personal standard for authentication.

There is no such thing as demanding a "highly personal standard". A piece of evidence can either be authenticated or it can not.

Said highly personal standard is almost always specifically designed to set the bar impractically high, and rarely resembles what is actually done in practice.

And who decides what is actually done in practice? The person who sets the bar low?

The purpose of all this is to allow That Guy to simply ignore hostile evidence by trying to use a bogus authentication standard to unilaterally declare that the hostile evidence is "unauthenticated," then equating "unauthenticated" with "invalid"

and then there is a guy who uses his low standard to declare evidence valid..... So, where does that leave us?

[John Mytton]

MW: Evidence is authentic or it isn't. This is nothing inbetween.

"Authentic" and "authenticated" are two parallel concepts that are not necessarily the same thing. An authentic item is always authentic whether or not it has been authenticated. My beef is with the deliberate confusion of these two concepts. A related issue is the inevitable appearance That Guy who invariably demands to apply a highly personal standard for authentication. Said highly personal standard is almost always specifically designed to set the bar impractically high, and rarely resembles what is actually done in practice.  The purpose of all this is to allow That Guy to simply ignore hostile evidence by trying to use a bogus authentication standard to unilaterally declare that the hostile evidence is "unauthenticated," then equating "unauthenticated" with "invalid"

That's an excellent summation but as I suspected and reading Martin's knee jerk response, it's going to fall on deaf ears.
Since the 60's this entire assassination has been controversial to malcontents and uneducated misfits because at the heart of it all, a little communist dweeb with a rifle can literally change history so there must be a deeper reason behind it.

And with each passing decade the uncleaned masses dig into every aspect and split the already split hair more and more, yet nobody to this day has found anyone behind the conspiracy, so the tactics change and it's no longer about discovering their suspected truth, so now we're at the point of evidence having to be authenticated to an undisclosed personal standard just so in their eyes Oswald's legacy can be cleared.

But what is obvious to me and I've said this before, that this isn't like planting weed on a suspect which even then has it's difficulties but the absolutely MASSIVE conspiracy which involved virtually every facet of law enforcement(who some were at odds with each other), means that every participant knew that every aspect was under extreme scrutiny, so who knew who and what was looking over their shoulder? I personally believe with that in mind that everybody told the truth to the best of their abilities and of course people aren't machines and there will be tiny contradictions, for instance just watch how Martin recently went to town because of Gerald Hill's months later approximate memory, it's a joke.

Sure with hindsight I would have a word in many authorities ears to correct some mistakes like the WC depiction of Kennedy's head wound(sheesh), carrying out the open ended rifle bag which surely lost blanket fibers, not moving the rifle bag from the sniper's nest, more thorough autopsy photos and ETC. but none of this changes the mountain of evidence which convicts Oswald!

JohnM

[Lance Payette]

The chain of custody is what actually occurred with an item of evidence: Officer A picked it up at the scene, retained possession until handing it to Officer B, who retained possession before handing it to Detective C, who delivered it to Officer D who was in charge of the evidence room and who logged it in. If, in the heat of a chaotic event, Officer A writes a report stating that he handed it to Officer X, this is not a "defect in the chain of custody." It is a discrepancy between what Officer A did and what he wrote. If Officer B testifies "No, he handed it to me," Officer X testifies he didn't receive it, and Officer A agrees he erred in writing his report, there is no defect in the chain of custody (except in Conspiracy World, of course, where all three officers are obviously lying).

I just happened to be reading Secret Service Agent Donald Burke's report of 11-23-63 detailing the retrieval of the Postal Money Order from the National Archives and Record Services federal records center in Alexandria, VA on that date. The report details the extreme care the National Archives official, Postal official and Secret Service officials took to establish a rock-solid chain of custody from the records center to the safe at the Secret Service office. It's wonderful when that occurs, but it doesn't always occur and it isn't necessarily fatal when it doesn't (except in Conspiracy World).

Here is the basic idea from an Illinois case involving seized cocaine:

"The court in Woods noted the State bears the burden of showing a chain of custody sufficiently complete to make it improbable the evidence has been subject to tampering or substitution by showing the police took reasonable protective measures to ensure the substance recovered was the same as the substance tested. Unless a defendant produces evidence of actual tampering, substitution, or contamination, a sufficiently complete chain of custody does not require every person in the chain to testify. Woods, 214 Ill. 2d at 467, 828 N.E.2d at 255. Deficiencies in a chain of custody go to the weight and not the admissibility of evidence. Even where a link is missing in a chain of custody, the evidence is properly admitted where testimony sufficiently described the condition of the evidence when delivered which matched the description of the evidence when examined. Woods, 214 Ill. 2d at 467-68, 828 N.E.2d at 255."

[Martin Weidmann]

The chain of custody is what actually occurred with an item of evidence: Officer A picked it up at the scene, retained possession until handing it to Officer B, who retained possession before handing it to Detective C, who delivered it to Officer D who was in charge of the evidence room and who logged it in. If, in the heat of a chaotic event, Officer A writes a report stating that he handed it to Officer X, this is not a "defect in the chain of custody." It is a discrepancy between what Officer A did and what he wrote. If Officer B testifies "No, he handed it to me," Officer X testifies he didn't receive it, and Officer A agrees he erred in writing his report, there is no defect in the chain of custody (except in Conspiracy World, of course, where all three officers are obviously lying).

I just happened to be reading Secret Service Agent Donald Burke's report of 11-23-63 detailing the retrieval of the Postal Money Order from the National Archives and Record Services federal records center in Alexandria, VA on that date. The report details the extreme care the National Archives official, Postal official and Secret Service officials took to establish a rock-solid chain of custody from the records center to the safe at the Secret Service office. It's wonderful when that occurs, but it doesn't always occur and it isn't necessarily fatal when it doesn't (except in Conspiracy World).

Here is the basic idea from an Illinois case involving seized cocaine:

"The court in Woods noted the State bears the burden of showing a chain of custody sufficiently complete to make it improbable the evidence has been subject to tampering or substitution by showing the police took reasonable protective measures to ensure the substance recovered was the same as the substance tested. Unless a defendant produces evidence of actual tampering, substitution, or contamination, a sufficiently complete chain of custody does not require every person in the chain to testify. Woods, 214 Ill. 2d at 467, 828 N.E.2d at 255. Deficiencies in a chain of custody go to the weight and not the admissibility of evidence. Even where a link is missing in a chain of custody, the evidence is properly admitted where testimony sufficiently described the condition of the evidence when delivered which matched the description of the evidence when examined. Woods, 214 Ill. 2d at 467-68, 828 N.E.2d at 255."

The chain of custody is what actually occurred with an item of evidence: Officer A picked it up at the scene, retained possession until handing it to Officer B, who retained possession before handing it to Detective C, who delivered it to Officer D who was in charge of the evidence room and who logged it in. If, in the heat of a chaotic event, Officer A writes a report stating that he handed it to Officer X, this is not a "defect in the chain of custody."

Agreed. But, as happend with the jacket; (1) the officer - if that's what he was, because Westbrook wasn't sure - who found the jacket remains unidentified and never writes a report, (2) and Westbrook isn't entirely sure where the jacket was found, (3) the jacket is described as being white in several radio communications, (4) the officer Westbrook gave the jacket to also remains unidentified, (5) the jacket then disappears for more than an hour only to turn up in Westbrook's possesion again, now suddenly being grey and carrying the markings of 7 officers, including Westbrook, who submited it to the evidence room but completely omits any information about the discovery of the jacket in his December 3rd report to Chief Curry, then you clearly do have a defect in the chain of custody.