THE JFK ASSASSINATION – BASIS FOR LEGAL ACTION
It is a myth that the assassination of President Kennedy will always remain an
enduring mystery. Though justice may never be served, the murder of John F.
Kenney is not an unsolvable crime, but rather a homicide that can be solved to
a moral and legal certainty by traditional detective work.
To keep people questioning, to allow multiple theories to abound, to let time
slip away and drag on before applying the basic and routine legal procedures
for investigating and solving such a crime is only a reflection of the
institutional unwillingness, resistance and refusal to challenge the powers
that took over the government on November 22, 1963.
The feeling of citizen helplessness is reflected in the subtitle of the book by
one of the living victims of the same criminals – James Tague, whose book is
called The Truth Withheld – A Survivor’s
Story – Why We Will Never Know the Truth About the Assassination. But those
responsible for JFK’s murder win and go free only if they die before being
exposed, and escape justice.
The reason for the Congressional law that established the “50 year rule” on the
classification of all Congressional documents is that is the amount of time it
is estimated for the people mentioned in the documents to be dead. Since it is
not yet 50 years after the assassination of President Kennedy, some of those
suspects are therefore still alive.
It is simply not true that the murder of JFK will forever remain a mystery, and
we’ll never know the truth, since thanks to the JFK Act, we have most of the
evidence, the documentary records and witness testimony in the public
domain.
Despite the institutional unwillingness to make the effort to solve the crime,
a strong regiment of independent researchers, determined investigators, honest
witnesses and ordinary citizens have taken upon themselves to determine the
truth and solve the crime, but justice has yet to take its course.
“We need not accept (the) view that mankind…..is doomed,” JFK said in his landmark
June 10, 1963 ‘Peace
Speech’ at American University.
We need not accept, “that we are gripped by forces we cannot control…Our
problems are manmade – therefore, they can be solved by man….No problem of
human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved
the seemingly unsolvable – and we believe man can do it again.”
American political assassinations are murders that were committed by men, and
therefore can be solved by men, if only the effort is made to do it. However belatedly,
there is a new trend to at least attempt to resolve the civil rights and
political murders of the 1960s, with the assassination of Medgar Evers, the
murders of the Philadelphia, Mississippi Freedom Riders, the York, Pennsylvania
race riot killings, the MLK assassination
civil trial, and the passage of the Emmett Till Bill to establish a permanent
department dedicated to such murders and assassinations all utilized the
judicial system to solve crimes that were thought to be untouchable a decade
ago.
Whether the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, as the
official report alleges, or was a patsy as he claimed, he was a former U.S.
Marine who worked at a U2 base in Japan, was trained in the Russian language,
defected to the USSR, returned with a Russian wife, reportedly took a shot at
General Walker, participated in covert Cuban operations in New Orleans and
Mexico City, and fits the covert operative profile that makes the assassination
a covert intelligence operation. As former Senator Richard Schweikder (R. Pa.)
put it, the case has “the fingerprints of intelligence,” and it must be
properly investigated as such.
Just because covert operations are designed to conceal the actual perpetuators
doesn’t mean that they can’t be exposed, identified and brought to justice,
just as other, similar covert crimes have been exposed – Watergate,
Iran-Contra, the assassination of the former Chilean ambassador to the U.S. in
Washington, and more recent mob and terrorist conspiracies.
How can ordinary citizens force the hand of an entrenched judicial system? The
system is changing, and a new guard are now at the ramparts, working on behalf
of the taxpayers and citizens instead of the old political machine. There are
examples of how other such political assassinations were solved through the
system, and despite the system.
An examination of how the assassination of Medgar Evers and the other civil
rights murders of the 1960s were resolved after decades presents a road map to
follow, and one of the first stops on the way to justice is the grand
jury.
“As a general policy,” former Justice Department official Ben Civiletti
testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in its
last session, “the Department of Justice seldom turns down at least exploring,
or reviewing a petition or reasonable request,…(and)…to some extent it becomes a matter of public will…but also a matter of judgment that falls within
the duties of any particular department or agency of government…as to how far questions…can be explored to a useful or fruitful
purpose.”
Getting questions answered, getting questions answered honestly and under oath
is one thing, getting the proper questions asked in a proper legal venue is
another thing all together.
Besides determining the truth and seeking justice, it would be useful and
fruitful to determine who killed President Kennedy, why they did it, and how
they accomplished it, so such a thing can never happen again.
If the assassination of Medgar Evers was immediately pursued
properly and justice resolved, President Kennedy would not have been killed in
the same way, and if JFK’s assassination was properly resolved immediately, RFK
and MLK would never have died the way the
did. It is only because such murders are not properly and legally resolved
that makes it viable to happen again.
Political assassination remain an effective tool for controlling public and
political policy only because the true perpetuators of these crimes are
permitted to remain hidden in the background, pulling the strings of the
puppets and moving the pawns as they have for decades.
The assassination of President Kennedy has maintained its
watershed mark as the single most significant political event of the past
century because it remains unresolved.
Despite the tremendous amount of information that is now
available, it remains an unresolved enigma and unsolved cold case homicide
because there is no institutional willingness, motive or desire to simply solve
it.
Unsolved cold cases, especially homicides, are usually reviewed every few
years, sometimes by a new detective who looks over old evidence to see if there
is anything that has been overlooked, or if there is any previously unknown
evidence or witnesses, or recently developed scientific tools that could be
used to help solve the crime.
There is no statute of limitations on murder, and under the
rules of criminal procedure, homicide is given precedence over all other
crimes, and once accumulated, the evidence in a homicide is presented to a
grand jury by a prosecutor or district attorney, who represents the
people. The People versus the Criminal Suspects.
Independent researchers, journalists and ordinary citizens can identify
evidence, uncover conspiracies and witness crimes, but if there is no investigation,
no case, no grand jury, no place to present the evidence, then there is no
justice. As Mr. Civiletti explained to the HSCA, the DOJ “seldom turns down exploring at least, or reviewing a petition or
reasonable request…”
Towards the development of a legal case, the grand jury Petition-Request is a
citizen’s petition to a District Attorney responsible for prosecuting offenders
to request a grand jury be convened to review the facts of a case and determine
if there is enough evidence to indict someone for a crime.
A grand jury is asked to decide, not guilt or innocence, but whether there is
enough evidence to have a person brought to trial for a crime. The grand jury
only hears evidence of guilt, but does not render a verdict. Its decision is
whether to indict, which is merely an accusation, or not to indict. Guilt or
innocence is determined in a court of law; where the rules of evidence preclude
hearsay evidence and allows the defense attorney the opportunity to
cross-examine witnesses. Before a grand jury, hearsay is allowed, and witnesses
must testify without counsel, as all attorneys, other than the prosecutor, are
not permitted in the grand jury room.
If the grand jury determines there is enough evidence, they vote a “True Bill”
and indict someone for a crime.
The DA can simply ignore such a citizen’s petition and request and not present
the evidence to a grand jury, or even if a grand jury votes to indict, it is
still up to the DA to issue the indictment and decide whether or not to proceed
and take the matter to court.
The Grand Jury process, which stems from English Cannon law, has been refined
by the United States Constitutional system as an extension of the prosecutor’s
will, though historically the grand jury can investigate official corruption,
review and develop evidence, attempt to answer questions, subpoena records and
witnesses, order forensic autopsies and specialized tests and follow the
evidence where ever it leads.
While grand juries composed of ordinary American citizens do not have the
knowledge of the history and powers of a grand jury, and are often merely tools
of the prosecutors, and do what the DA instructs them to do, sometimes a
prosecutor will lose control of a grand jury. That happens when some grand
jurors begin to ask questions and make requests of its own. Such a grand jury
is called a “Runaway Grand Jury,” and often goes beyond the original intent of
the prosecutors, such as the Rocky Mountain Flats Runaway Grand Jury. When the
Colorado prosecutors refused to issued the indictments against major defense
contractors for environmental contamination, the grand jury leaked its report
to the press [See: Westword Rocky Mountain Flats ]
The previous reluctance of district attorneys to prosecute political assassinations,
especially decades-old crimes, is being overcome by new, young and diversified
blood in official positions of authority. Although those District Attorneys at
the top of their profession know that investigating political assassinations is
detrimental to furthering their careers, and witness what happened to New
Orleans DA Jim Garrison, there is a younger generation of assistant prosecutors
who look upon solving such major crimes as an achievement that will advance
their future careers.
Former HSCA attorney, Dean Browning Webb, Esq., who specializes in RICO
litigation, said that such indictments are possible and that, “I am especially
interested in developing an approach to seek indictments of those who conspired
to murder the President.”
“I believe that a prosecution is feasible,” says Webb, “especially when
invoking the Pinkerton Doctrine,” which holds that “a person associated with a
conspiracy culpable for any criminal act committed by a co-conspirator if the
act is within the scope of the conspiracy and is a foreseeable result of the
criminal scheme.” Agency theory holds that “all conspirators act as the agent
or represent the other conspirators involved in the criminal scheme, and are
liable for all criminal acts committed by the other conspirators.”
Another reason that District Attorneys are reluctant to investigate and
prosecute political assassination, besides opposing the powerful cabal behind
the murder, is the effort and manpower it takes to solve it, which takes away
from the normal, day-to-day operations for which the District Attorney is also
responsible.
This can be compensated by compiling the evidence accumulated by independent
researchers and investigators over the past years and including the most
significant facts, documents and witnesses (including their contacts), and detail
the outstanding questions with the Petition-Request, thus laying out the case and
reducing the work of the prosecutors. Such a convincing attachment would also
help persuade a prosecutor to accept the case and take it to a grand
jury.
It will only take one such JFK grand jury, and there are a number of potential
jurisdictions, with Federal, State and County grand juries, each with many
assistant district attorneys who work under the District Attorney, providing
dozens of individuals in which to present the Petition Request. And only
one needs to be convinced.
Establishing jurisdiction in any particular district will not be difficult.
Although some will argue that it was not a federal crime to kill the president
in 1963, it was a federal crime to conspire to kill a federal employee, whether
it is a postman or a president, and if conspiracy can be demonstrated, a
federal grand jury can handle it.
Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, when he assumed
office, found a cache of assassination records from former D.A. Henry Wade.
Watkins also worked with the Innocence Project, which used DNA
and new evidence to free those who were wrongfully convicted. If those
convicted were innocent, then someone else must have committed those crimes.
Watkins should have one assistant DA or a small team of lawyer, detective,
investigator, researcher to reinvestigate such unsolved cold cases, including
the still unsolved murder of Dallas Policeman J.D. Tippit. While Lee Harvey
Oswald, killed while in Dallas Police custody, is blamed for the crime, it is
clear that Oswald was frequently a victim of mistaken identity, sometimes
apparently intentional, and the case against him in the Tippit murder is shaky,
and new witnesses have come forward who should be required to testify before a
grand jury to see if there is evidence enough to indict some living suspect for
the crime, or one related to it – perjury, tampering with evidence, destruction
of evidence, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
Besides the local Dallas county district
jurisdiction, there are Texas State
grand juries, as well as the North Texas Federal District court, which is
located in Dallas. The reluctance
of any Dallas or Texas official
to investigate the assassination will probably make other jurisdictions more
inviting.
Of the dozens of the potential jurisdictions, it will be easiest to convene a
Special Federal Grand Jury in Washington D.C.,
where most of the original evidence is located at the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA), and the body
of the victim can be exhumed for a proper forensic autopsy using the latest
scientific equipment and knowledge.
Although conspiracy and homicide are the crimes being investigated, once the
grand jury begins to subpoena records and require the sworn testimony of
witnesses, other crimes, such as perjury, destruction of evidence, obstruction
of justice come into play, and help persuade witnesses to tell the truth.
One aspect of the grand jury proceedings is their secrecy, which prevents the
testimony from being made public before a trial. If there are no indictments,
and there isn’t a trial, the grand jury could issue a report explaining what it
learned and the reasons behind its action or inaction.
Historically, traditionally and legally, according to the Constitution of the
United States, the evidence in a homicide is presented to a grand jury, which
is where the evidence in the murder of John F. Kennedy must go before there can
be justice.
“That we live as a nation of laws, and are not a ‘Banana Republic,’” said
Warren Commissioner John McCloy, “requires us as individuals and as a society,
to purse truth and justice, ‘even if the heaven’s may fall.’”
It is not too late now, but soon, this case will slip slowly from an unsolved
homicide to an historical mystery, unless we act now, and present the best
evidence in a Petition-Request to convene a special JFK Grand Jury, and let the
legal take its course, wherever it may go.
Grand Jury Petition.
Federal Grand Jury Petition (Request) to evaluate the existing evidence and
investigate the homicide of John F. Kennedy, the attempted murder of John B.
Connolly, the wounding of James Tague and the murders of J. D. Tippit and Lee
Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas in Nov. 1963.
[Note: Although the assassination of the President was not a federal crime in
1963, it was a federal crime to conspire to kill a federal official in the line
of duty. Therefore we are submitting this petition, with evidentiary exhibits
of conspiracy to Special Federal Grand Juries in the Northern District of the
State of Texas, in New Orleans Parish in Louisiana and Washington D.C.
requesting that a Special Federal Grand Jury be convened especially for these
particular cases, guided by a Assistant U.S. Attorney and assisted by a Task
Force of independent researchers, professionals, investigators, law enforcement
officers and judicial officials.]
To: Richard B. Roper, U.S. Attorney for Federal District of North Texas, Earle
Cabell Federal Building, 1100 Commerce St., 3rd Floor, Dallas, Texas,
75242-1699
We citizens of the United States of America do hereby petition you Richard B.
Roper [U.S. Attorney for Federal District of North Texas] to fulfill your
obligations [Under U.S. Code : Title 18, Section 3331(Summoning and term) –3332
(Powers & Duties) & 3331 (Reports); Or appropriate statute for correct
jurisdiction]; See: Documentary Exhibits #1 (a), (b), (c)] and carry out your
duties to convene a grand jury of American citizens to “operate as an
investigative agency…in cases of civic corruption or misconduct by public
officers….to look into the criminal conduct prior to the arrest of any suspect …
(since) … the inquisitorial power of the grand jury may operate to develop
evidence against civic corruption, organized crime, or a broad array of
criminal activity.”
This request is being submitted for the purposes of:
1) Completing previously impeded official investigations; by the Dallas Police,
Texas State, Secret Service, FBI, the Warren Commission, Church Intelligence
Committee, Rockefeller Commission, Pike Committee, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, Assassinations Records Review Board; Justice Department of the
United States;
2) To determine the disposition and establish the provenance of all relevant
evidence, records and witnesses;
3) To answer all outstanding questions that can be reasonably answered by basic
inquiry and independent investigation (and not by agencies or departments of
the government that have been implicated in the crime);
4) To have qualified experts review the available acoustic, ballistic, medical
and autopsy evidence and to order new, independent studies and tests you deem
necessary, including proper forensic autopsies of victims;
5) To review the available documentary records and hard evidence, subpoena
witnesses, take their testimony, determine what crimes have been committed and
whether there is enough evidence to indict those individuals responsible for
crimes related to the assassination, including but not limited to conspiracy,
homicide, treason, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice and
perjury;
6) To conduct a thorough oversight review of how and why this case was permitted
to go unresolved for so long and to determine the national security
implications;
7) To help restore public confidence in government, the law and the legal
and
judicial systems of this country; The public confidence in the government of
the United States is lower now than ever before and began to decline, according
to public opinion polls, in December, 1963, directly as a result of the
assassination of the President, and has never been regained, and will not be
regained until the remaining questions are properly answered.
We citizens of the United States hereby present you with this petition, along
with the relevant discovered evidence, records and exhibits, and respectfully
request that you carry out your responsibilities under the law to convene and
present them to a grand jury.
When you are finished we ask you to publicly report [Under Sec. 3333] what
steps you have taken, what you have discovered and whether you have determined
if indictments should be brought against any individuals for crimes related to
the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United
States.
Attached: Evidence List; Exhibits; Living Material Witness List; Living Expert
Witness List; Outstanding Questions; List of Related Crimes;
William E. Kelly, Jr. –
List of names of co-signers to petition.
To have your name added to petition email: Bkjfk3@yahoo.com
Petition on line:
http://www.petitiononline.com/jfkgjury/petition.html
