How Was CE399 Entered Into Evidence?

[Dan O'meara]

I've been assuming that, during the Warren Commission's hearings, CE399 was entered into evidence as the bullet that was found in Parkland Hospital.
But I'm also aware that the first four people who dealt with the bullet found in Parkland - Tomlinsom, Wright, Johnsen and Rowley - all refused to identify CE399 as the bullet they handled that day.
I'm also aware that O P Wright, categorically denied CE399 was the bullet.
So, how could CE399 be entered into evidence?
While looking through the testimony of Dr. Robert Shaw I came across this from Arlen Specter:

"Dr. Shaw, I now show you Commission Exhibit 399 which has heretofore been identified as being a virtually whole bullet weighing 158 grains.
May I say for the record, that in the depositions which have been taken in Parkland Hospital, that we have ascertained, and those depositions are part of the overall record, that is the bullet which came from the stretcher of Governor Connally."

What are the depositions taken in Parkland that have somehow confirmed that CE399 " is the bullet which came from the stretcher of Governor Connally."?
The only relevant deposition taken in Parkland Hospital regarding the bullet discovered there was that of Darrell Tomlinson, the man who found the bullet on the stretcher.
In this deposition he is not asked a single question about the bullet itself, he is not asked to describe it in any way. He isn't asked to identify CE399 as the bullet he found, he isn't even shown a picture of it. There is nothing in his testimony that has anything to do with CE399.
The only thing he is asked that has anything to do with the bullet is what stretcher he found it on and he is clear that he wasn't sure which stretcher the bullet was found on.

It was Specter who took Tomlinson's testimony and here we have him stating that CE399 was identified as the bullet that was found on Connally's stretcher.
This is clearly not true as far as Tomlinson's testimony is concerned, so who identified CE399 as the bullet found on the stretcher in Parkland Hospital if it wasn't the man who discovered it?
How could CE399 be entered into evidence as the bullet found at Parkland if nobody ever identified as such?

[Michael Capasse]

It came in thru Commander Humes.
With an empty promise from Spector, "...subject to later proof..."

https://jfk.boards.net/post/3956/thread

[Dan O'meara]

It came in thru Commander Humes.
With an empty promise from Spector, "...subject to later proof..."

https://jfk.boards.net/post/3956/thread

Nice one Michael.
Humes gave testimony on the 16th March '64

Mr. SPECTER: Doctor Humes, I show you a bullet which we have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 399, and may I say now that, subject to later proof, this is the missile which has been taken from the stretcher which the evidence now indicates was the stretcher occupied by Governor Connally. I move for its admission into evidence at this time.
The CHAIRMAN: It may be admitted.
(The article, previously marked Commission Exhibit No. 399 for identification, was received in evidence.)
Mr. SPECTER: We have been asked by the FBI that the missile not be handled by anybody because it is undergoing further ballistic tests, and it now appears, may the record show, in a plastic case in a cotton background.
Now looking at that bullet, Exhibit 399, Doctor Humes, could that bullet have gone through or been any part of the fragment passing through President Kennedy's head in Exhibit No. 388?
Commander HUMES. I do not believe so, sir.
Mr. SPECTER: And could that missile have made the wound on Governor Connally's right wrist?
Commander HUMES. I think that that is most unlikely.

A couple of things to note;
1] Specter states that CE399 was taken from a stretcher "which the evidence now indicates" was Connally's stretcher. What evidence?
2] CE399 was still undergoing ballistics test and may not even have been linked via ballistics to the alleged murder weapon when it was admitted into evidence.

As you pointed out, this identification was "subject to later proof". What was this later proof?
On the face of it CE399 seems to have been accepted into evidence solely on the say so of Specter. Specter says it was the bullet found in Parkland and that it was involved in the shooting, therefore it can be admitted into evidence.
Am I missing something?

If it can be demonstrated that there was never any evidence that the bullet came from Connally's stretcher and that no "later proof" was ever offered, what does this mean for the validity of CE399 as a piece of evidence?

[Dan O'meara]

On March 16th CE399 is entered into evidence "subject to later proof"
Fifteen days later, March 31st, Robert Frazier (FBI firearms expert) is giving testimony when CE 399 is introduced:

Mr. Eisenberg: Mr. Frazier, I now hand you Commission Exhibit 399, which, for the record, is a bullet, and also for the record, it is a bullet which was found in the Parkland Hospital following the assassination. Are you familiar with this exhibit?

No longer is there the need to add "subject to later proof", CE399 is presented as the bullet found in Parkland as if it were a proven fact.
What has happened in between the 16th and the 31st that has given the Warren Commission such confidence?
There was only one witness in between these dates whose questioning had anything to do with the bullet found in Parkland Hospital - Darrell Tomlinson, the man who initially found the bullet. Other than which stretcher the bullet was found on, Tomlinson was not asked a single question about the bullet he discovered. Considering that this is one of the most important pieces of evidence in the whole case, the piece of evidence upon which the Single Bullet theory rests, it is inconceivable that Tomlinson was not asked to describe the bullet, describe the events surrounding it's discovery and what happened after he discovered it. Above all it is beyond inconceivable that he isn't asked to identify the bullet, that he isn't shown the bullet or even a picture of the bullet to identify. It is a truly mind-boggling thing that Nutters can somehow slide over all this as though it were meaningless to the case.

There is zero evidence presented before the Warren Commission that identifies CE399 as the bullet found on the stretcher.
There is no "later proof", no corroboration, no identification.
Yet it was unquestioningly admitted into evidence.

[Dan O'meara]

This is how the Warren Commission report deals with CE399

Discovery of Bullet at Parkland Hospital

A nearly whole bullet was found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital after the assassination. After his arrival at the hospital the Governor was brought into trauma room No. 2 on a stretcher, removed from the room on that stretcher a short time later, and taken on an elevator to the second-floor operating room. On the second floor he was transferred from the stretcher to an operating table which was then moved into the operating room, and a hospital attendant wheeled the empty stretcher into an elevator. Shortly afterward, Darrell C. Tomlinson, the hospital's senior engineer, removed this stretcher from the elevator and placed it in the corridor on the ground floor, alongside another stretcher wholly unconnected with the care of Governor Connally. A few minutes later, he bumped one of the stretchers against the wall and a bullet rolled out.

Although Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one, the Commission has concluded that the bullet came from the Governor's stretcher. That conclusion is buttressed by evidence which eliminated President Kennedy's stretcher as a source of the bullet. President Kennedy remained on the stretcher on which he was carried into the hospital while the doctors tried to save his life. He was never removed from the stretcher from the time he was taken into the emergency room until his body was placed in a casket in that same room. After the President's body was removed from that stretcher, the linen was taken off and placed in a hamper and the stretcher was pushed into trauma room No. 2, a completely different location from the site where the nearly whole bullet was found.

It starts off definitively - a bullet was found on Connally's stretcher - before it is revealed that the person who found the bullet wasn't actually sure which stretcher it was found on. It then descends into farce as it is revealed how they decided it was Connally's stretcher - because they figured out it wasn't JFK's stretcher!!
For real??
How did this stop it from being any other stretcher in the hospital?
Were there only two stretchers in use that day?
This is the best they could come up with?

More important is what's not being said. Nobody ever identified CE399 as the bullet found in the hospital.
The WC knew this but kept it out of their conclusions. How is that NOT a whitewash?
It was entered into evidence "subject to later proof" but that proof never materialised.
In fact, no one was ever even asked to provide such proof.
NO ONE WAS EVER ASKED TO IDENTIFY CE399 AS THE BULLET THAT WAS FOUND AT PARKLAND.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Ask yourself - how important was CE399 to the Warren Commission's case?
The man who discovered the bullet testified but wasn't asked a single question about the bullet itself!!

In later years Connally wrote an autobiography entitled, "In History's Shadow", in which he revealed that, as he was being moved from his stretcher a bullet, or large fragment of a bullet. fell to the floor and was recovered by an attending nurse. He even recalled the sound it made as it hit the floor:

"..the most curious discovery of all took place when they rolled me off the stretcher, and onto the examining table. A metal object fell to the floor, with a click no louder than a wedding band. The nurse picked it up and slipped it into her pocket. It was the bullet from my body, the one that passed though my back, chest and wrist and worked itself loose from my thigh.

There was enormous significance to that scrap of metal, but I can't be certain how many years later I understood the importance of it. I have always believed that three bullets found their mark. What happened in the hospital demonstrated how easily a bullet could have been swept aside and lost.."

As luck would have it, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade was visiting his old friend Connally at this time, when a nurse carrying a bullet came up to him. This is recalled in an interview with the Dallas Morning News:

HW: I also went out to see Connally, but he was in the operating room. Some nurse had a bullet in her hand, and said this was on the gurney that Connally was on. I talked with Nellie Connally a while and then went on home.

DMN: What did you do with the bullet? Is this the famous pristine bullet people have talked about?

HW: I told her to give it to the police, which she said she would. I assume that's the pristine bullet.

It would appear she did exactly as she said she would and is presumably the nurse who came up to Texas Highway patrolman Bob Nolan and gave him an envelope containing a bullet from Gov. Connally.
This is further confirmation, as if any were needed, that the bullet found by Darrell Tomlinson did not come from Connally's stretcher and had nothing to do with the assassination.