Jack Ruby: Murder Trial Transcripts & Historical Court Documents

Description

Jack Ruby: A Legal Chronology and Key Figures

• November 22, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald is accused of murdering President John F. Kennedy and Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit.
• November 24, 1963: Jack Ruby murders Lee Harvey Oswald.
• Early 1964 (presumably leading up to March 14, 1964): The trial of Jack Ruby for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald takes place in Criminal District Court No. 3, Dallas County.
• March 14, 1964: Jack Ruby is convicted of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.
• September 9, 1965: Jack Ruby writes a note to attorney Elmer Gertz, revealing his despair and paranoia.
• October 5, 1966: The case of Jack Rubenstein (a.k.a. Jack Ruby) v. State of Texas (# 37900) is appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Ruby’s conviction is overturned on two grounds:
• An oral confession of premeditation made while in police custody should have been ruled inadmissible (violated a Texas criminal statute).
• The venue for the trial should have been changed to a county other than Dallas due to the high-profile nature of the crime.
• After October 5, 1966: A retrial for Jack Ruby is scheduled for Wichita Falls, TX.
• January 3, 1967: Jack Ruby dies of cancer before his retrial can begin.

Cast of Characters

• Jack Ruby (also known as Jack Rubenstein): The individual convicted on March 14, 1964, for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. His conviction was later overturned, but he died before a retrial could occur. He is described as expressing despair and paranoia in a note to his attorney.
• Lee Harvey Oswald: The individual accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy and Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963. He was murdered by Jack Ruby.
• President John F. Kennedy: The U.S. President whose assassination on November 22, 1963, led to Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrest and subsequent murder by Jack Ruby.
• J.D. Tippit: A Dallas policeman murdered on November 22, 1963, for which Lee Harvey Oswald was also accused.
• Judge Joe B. Brown, Sr.: The judge who presided over the Jack Ruby murder trial. He had a practice of not allowing jurors to take notes during proceedings but permitted them to keep personal journals outside of court.
• Allen McCoy: A juror in the Jack Ruby trial. He kept a 58-sheet notebook with 18 pages of handwritten entries, primarily covering his experience being selected for the jury.
• J. Waymon Rose: The tenth selected juror in the 1964 Jack Ruby trial. He was a salesman for a Dallas furniture manufacturer. He kept a 76-page spiral-bound notebook with 50 handwritten pages, documenting living conditions and activities of himself and fellow jurors, as well as his personal thoughts on Ruby, his attorneys, and the trial, at his wife’s request.
• Ann Rose: The wife of Ruby juror J. Waymon Rose. She kept a stenographer notebook with 28 pages of entries (found on nine pages, with a tenth added), recording her personal experiences while her husband was serving on the jury.
• Elmer Gertz: An attorney to whom Jack Ruby wrote a note on September 9, 1965, revealing his despair and paranoia.