You seem to be replying a lot to somebody you claim isn't worth your time. It's really pathetic!
As I said to another NWNT poster, I reserve the right to respond if it amuses me to expose the flaws in your thinking. Hence, I will peek into the NWMT bin once more, pathetic as it may be. I will then simply declare victory and move on.
1. The critical points for the prosecution would have been that CE 399 was fired from Oswald's rifle, was found at the hospital where JFK and Connally had been taken and provided a plausible explanation for the SBT. Precisely which stretcher it was found on would not have been an issue in the admissibility of CE 399.
And all of those points would run into serious problems. Except for a photocopy of a microfilm showing an order form, which an FBI expert claimed (despite another expert saying such claims can not be made with 100% certainty) that it was written, there is no conclusive evidence that rifle that fired CE 399 did in fact belong to Oswald. That's can of worms # 1
The second one is that there is no evidence that shows that the bullet now in evidence as CE 399 was ever at Parkland. That's can of worms #2
For these two reasons alone the defense would not object to CE 399 being entered into evidence, because it would allow them to completely destroy the prosecutor's case.
Uh-huh, defense lawyers cannily allow explosive evidence to be admitted because they think they can use it to "destroy" the critical points the prosecution is trying to make with it. Uh-huh, that happens all the time - not. Think about what you are suggesting. On your second inane point, CE 399 would never have been admitted into evidence unless the testimony of Tomlinson, Wright and Johnsen had established the likelihood that it was indeed found at Parkland.
2. The defense surely would have attempted to prevent the admission of CE 399 into evidence because, duh, it had been fired from Oswald's rifle, was found at the hospital where JFK and Connally had been taken and provided an explanation for the SBT.
Self serving speculation based on facts not in evidence or at least not proven.
I have no clue what you are even talking about. The prosecution would have wanted CE 399 admitted into evidence so the prosecution could show that it had been fired from Oswald's rifle, had been found in proximity to JFK and Connally, and could explain their wounds. Once it was admitted into evidence, the defense could certainly have attempted to show that it had not been fired from Oswald's rifle and could not explain their wounds. The defense might or might not have been successful. But any notion that the defense would have allowed CE 399 to be admitted because the defense was so confident it could prevail on the substantive issues is just nuts; such a tactic would have been ineffective assistance of counsel (i.e., malpractice) to the nth degree.
3. He who is NWMT states the admission of CE 399 would have allowed the defense to call Tomlinson and Wright and show they couldn't identify it as the found bullet. Uh, no. To get CE 399 into evidence in the first place, the PROSECUTION would have had to call T and W as part of the chain of custody. For the reasons stated in my original post, I don't believe this would have been a problem.
Well your original post was nothing more that self serving BS. Tomlinson and Wright have never confirmed that the bullet now in evidence as CE 399 is the one they found and saw on 11/22/63. Wright actually is on record saying that CE 399 is not the pointed bullet he received from Tomlinson. So if the prosecution puts both men on that stand to confirm the chain of custody it would actually even be better for the defense. You have already stated that you were impressed by the way Tomlinson stood his ground against Specter. Why would he not do the same at a trial? But even if the prosecution got Tomlinson to say what they wanted him to say, the defense would still have another shot at him to set the record straight and create plausible reasonable doubt.
You have a stunning ability to miss the point. We have no idea what Tomlinson and Wright would have said at trial. My point was simply that a couple of FBI documents saying they could "not identify" CE 399 do not carry the dark implications that Thompson and Aguilar suggest. My imaginary testimony was simply an effort to show how Tomlinson's testimony at trial could have satisfied the "identify" requirement and yet have been consistent with the FBI documents. His actual testimony about the stretchers supports this. My guess is that he told Odum something like "Look, I have no way of saying for certain that's the same bullet, and I'm not going to pretend I do, but it's consistent with what I saw." Shanklin and the author of CE 2011 turned this into "could not identify."
Wright is "on the record" - really? We have Thompson's and Aguilar's word for what he supposedly said in an at-home interview in 1967. That is not on the record. We have no idea what he would've said at a trial in 1964. As I said, even if he stuck with his pointy-headed story, it would not impair the chain of custody if those on either side - Tomlinson and Johnsen - said the bullet was not pointy-headed or if his recollection could otherwise be called into doubt.
4. He who is NWMT further states that the admission of CE 399 would have allowed the defense to ask T and W if Odum had shown them that same bullet in June and if their statements were correctly represented by the FBI in CE 2011 and Shanklin's AIRTEL. With respect to the admission of CE 399, all that would have mattered was what T and W said at trial in terms of identification. Whether they had been shown CE 399 in June by Odum or someone else would have been irrelevant to any issue other than the accuracy of CE 2011 and Shanklin's AIRTEL, neither of which would have had anything to do with the admissibility of CE 399
We're already beyond the admissibility of CE 399. In my scenario the defense would not object to CE 399 being admitted into evidence.
Your "scenario" is beyond goofy. My first law review article was about ineffective assistance of counsel by criminal defense attorneys, and your "scenario" would be a guaranteed ineffective assistance claim. (Are you aware that in the mock trial of Oswald, the defense did object to CE 399 - Spence being no fool - and the judge, a sitting federal judge, ruled it admissible at a pretrial evidentiary hearing? So much for your "scenario.")
If the defense had attempted to "impeach" T and W with CE 2011 and the AIRTEL, the prosecution would have pointed out that these documents were second-, third- or fourth-hand hearsay and had nothing to do with T's or W's ability to identify CE 399 at trial. If the judge had nevertheless allowed a question along the lines of "Did you tell Odum you couldn't identify CE 399?" the answer would likely have been as I described in my imaginary testimony: "Yes, Odum or some FBI agent showed me CE 399 in June and I told him, just as I'm telling the court now, that I could not identify CE 399 with certainty" - and that would not have been a bar to the identification and admissibility of CE 399.
The defense does not have to attempt to impeach Tomlinson and Wright. All they need to do is let both men say what they have been saying. So, we have to assume that the prosecution are not going to get a positive identification from Tomlinson or Wright. Which leaves the prosecution with a problem. Do they call Odum as a witness or accept that they can not show that the bullet now in evidence as CE 399 is the one Tomlinson found? In both cases they are screwed !
You continue to make no sense. Call Odum as a witness??? What could Odum say that would assist the prosecution in establishing the chain of custody of CE 399? The chain of custody would be determined by Tomlinson, Wright, Johnsen, Rowley, Todd and Frazier, period. You and I have no idea what Tomlinson "had been saying." That was the entire point of my imaginary testimony - the FBI documents could well be correct that he "could not identify" CE 399 when it was shown to him by Odum, yet whatever he actually said to Odum might, if repeated at trial, indeed satisfy the identification requirement. You seemingly do not grasp this.
As for Wright, once again I say that all we know is what he supposedly told Thompson in 1967. I find that describing a pristine bullet that was not CE 399, and then pulling an example out of a desk drawer, rather bizarre. We do not know what he would have testified at trial. It sounds as though what he said to Odum is similar to what Tomlinson said. If he testified at trial it was pointy-headed, then as I said previously this would not have been an admission-killer if Tomlinson and Todd testified it was not pointy-headed or his recollection were otherwise called into doubt.
5. He who is NWMT actually makes my point for me: Foaming-at-the-mouth, non-lawyer CTers look at a set of facts and completely misunderstand the actual implications of those facts.
Oh superior one (
), tell me, what makes you thinl I'm a CTer or a non-lawyer?
There is a talent called "thinking like a lawyer." It's what law school is all about. Your posts are SO FAR from "thinking like a lawyer" that I would bet my house, car and favorite cat you are not a lawyer or anything like a lawyer. I would weep for your clients if you were.
I would tend to guess some kind of salesman. Close?
As for a CTer, I guess I do tend to assume that those who quack and waddle like CTers are in fact CTers. Do non-CTers refer to "the die hard LN cult manuscript" as you do below? My sincere apologies if you're actually a CIA-sponsored cognitive infiltrator just like me. Let's do lunch at Langley during the conference next week!
This is the point of this thread, not whether CE 399 would actually have been admitted at trial. The point is that even CTers of the level of Tink Thompson and Gary Aguilar build a dark and sinister case around CE 399 when the facts are not really dark and sinister at all. Out here in the real world, where we don't have to obsess over legal technicalities, there is no reason to doubt that CE 399 was fired from Oswald's rifle and found at Parkland after JFK and Connally had been taken there.
And there is the die hard LN cult manuscript!
It basically says, why obsess about discrepancies in the the evidence, when we already know that Oswald fired CE399 from his rifle. Never mind that we can't conclusively prove that it was Oswald's rifle to begin with.
Your opinions about this case are not based on facts and/or critical examination of the evidence. Instead it's about assumptions, cherry picked evidence and a massive subjective bias.
Neener, neener, yada yada, on it goes. Back in the NWMT bin for you. Pound on the lid if you need anything.