Kennedy's Avenger

January 1, 2021

On November 24, 1963, two days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, millions saw nightclub owner Jack Ruby murder Oswald on live TV. New York Times best-selling coauthors Abrams and Fisher (Adams Under Fire) pick apart the highly publicized trial that followed. With a 300,000-copy first printing.

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April 12, 2021
Abrams and Fisher follow John Adams Under Fire with a disappointing rehash of the case against nightclub owner Jack Ruby for the killing of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Since Ruby’s attack on Oswald in a Dallas police station was broadcast on live TV, the major issue at the 1964 trial was Ruby’s state of mind. The prosecution charged him with premeditated homicide, while his defense team, led by flamboyant celebrity defense lawyer Melvin Belli, attempted to convince the jury that Ruby “suffered from a rare form of epilepsy” and had been in a “fugue state” when he shot Oswald. Ruby’s conviction was overturned on appeal, and he died of cancer in 1967 before he could be retried. Despite the subtitle, Abrams and Fisher downplay any evidence contrary to the Warren Commission’s conclusion that both Oswald and Ruby acted alone, and the duelling testimony by expert witnesses over Ruby’s mental state fails to captivate. Tortured prose and awkward embellishments of the trial record don’t help the authors’ cause (“As if he had been hit on the head with his own nonexistent gavel, Judge Brown finally got it”). Readers will consider this a missed opportunity.

April 15, 2021
Why did Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald? Abrams, chief legal analyst for ABC News, and journalist Fisher team up for their latest investigation, this time focused on the trial of Ruby, accused of killing JFK assassin Oswald. With the shooting broadly televised, Ruby's defense lawyers--headed by "square-jawed, silver-maned, impeccably groomed Californian Melvin Belli, arguably the most famous lawyer in the country"--hoped to spare Ruby from the death penalty by conjuring an innovative defense. Ruby, Belli asserted, suffered from a rare mental illness--psychomotor variant epilepsy--that resulted in a fugue state, during which he had no control over what he was doing. The authors offer an animated, overwhelmingly detailed examination of the trial, from the family's decision to hire a high-powered "superstar" lawyer, whose $50,000 fee, the family believed, could be raised by selling Ruby's story; to the verdict, when jurors unanimously found Ruby guilty and sentenced him to death. Jury selection was predictably contentious. Of 900 people called to serve, 500 showed up, and after 14 days of lawyerly wrangling, a jury consisting of eight men and four women, all White Protestants, was finally seated. Abrams and Fisher mine transcripts and news coverage to dramatize the trial as it unfolded, including witness testimony, lawyers' objections, the judge's rulings, and Belli's repeated calls for a mistrial. Medical experts for the defense and the prosecution offered contradictory theories about Ruby's mind. The verdict "was simply the end of the beginning"; Belli won an appeal, citing more than 200 errors by the judge. An increasingly paranoid Ruby testified before the Warren Commission about his motivation, denying a prior connection to Oswald. Suffering from cancer, he died in prison, awaiting a new trial. Did Oswald act alone? Did Ruby? Hints of a conspiracy, left unquestioned by the authors, feed into what they contend "a majority of Americans" suspect. A bright spotlight on well-worn ground.

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May 1, 2021
While Jack Ruby's trial dominated the news for months, in the decades since, history has tended to overlook the man who killed JFK's assassin. Here, journalists Abrams and Fisher take a fresh, detailed look at Jack Ruby and his trial, a spectacle that riveted the nation in 1963-64. Given the nature of the case, the legal circus began almost from the moment of Ruby's arrest. With journalistic precision and in encyclopedic detail, the authors follow the increasingly complicated and at times ludicrous proceedings, from the revolving door defense team to the endless motions and appeals, the conspiracy theories, and, of course, the ongoing media frenzy. Ruby was eventually convicted of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald and sentenced to death, but that conviction was overturned on appeal, with a new trial and a change of venue ordered. But the new trial was not to be; Ruby died of a stomach ailment shortly after winning his appeal, fueling further conspiracy theories about his demise. Followers of all things regarding the JFK assassination will be fascinated by this account of one of the most unique trials of the twentieth century.

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