On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald
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DVD details
Actor: Vincent BugliosiDirector: n/a
Brand: MPI HOME VIDEO
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 330 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-28
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MPI HOME VIDEO
Product features:
- Among the most heinous criminal acts ever committed on American soil is the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. When accused gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was himself shot to death two days later while in police custody, Americans were denied hard answers to a brutal and bewildering mystery. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DOCUMENTARIES Rating:?NR
DVD Reviews of On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald
DVD Review: Good as far as it goes
Summary: 4 Stars
In 1986, London Weekend Television hired real lawyers, a real judge and jury, and the actual surviving witnesses to bring about what would be the closest thing we could get to an actual trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. Two things make the result worth watching. First, there was no script. This was no designed dramatization. Everyone proceeded as if this were the real thing. Witnesses were cross-examined in sometimes rough fashion, just as they would have been in Oswald's legitimate trial. And second, two of America's best attorneys, Vincent Bugliosi and Gerry Spence, squared off. They showed their strengths and weaknesses, just as they did many times in real trials. Because we have been buried in JFK conspiracy theories, the actual evidence and tremendous quantity and quality of the evidence against Oswald gets overlooked. This trial helps to bring that evidence back to light. If the viewer tries to watch this as an impartial juror, the verdict is not hard to understand. This is absolutely riveting television, far better than any fiction. Perhaps its only flaw is that it's too short. Editing the trial from 21 hours down to 5 hours destroyed some of the continuity. If the full trial is ever released, I will buy it. Meanwhile, watch this trial both as entertainment and education.DVD Review: Lee Harvey Oswald's ONLY Trial
Summary: 5 Stars
This trial is the best possible way of determining the "truth" about the Kennedy assassination. With the REAL witnesses and other REAL persons involved (and still alive when this made for television "trial" was produced), the viewer is allowed to learn a great deal about the JFK assassination. With a little background beforehand, the viewer can easily follow this trial and learn a great deal. Formulating an opinion, after viewing, could be done by a more informed person. DON'T MISS THIS DVD if you have an interest in the "mystique" of the JFK assassination.DVD Review: On Trial: American Justice Itself
Summary: 5 Stars
Did Lee Harvey Oswald murder President Kennedy and if so did Oswald act alone or as part of a conspiracy?
In five and hours of gripping court room testimony from real witnesses not only are these issues but the process of American trial work on display.
As a trial litigator for over twenty years, I found myself appreciating this DVD on both levels.
In terms of the trial practice aspects of this presentation I was disappointed that the DVD started with the trial itself instead of jury selection. As trial litigators and many within the lay public well know, the outcome of jury selection often is the outcome of the trial itself.
Taking Gerry Spence as an example this was most prominently on display when he obtained an acquittal for Imelda Marcos in connection with charges of corruption while serving politically with her husband in the Phillipines (where she was actually mayor of the country's capital city).
Therefore it was unfortunate that we were unable to see Spence and Bugliosi engage the jurors in pre trial questioning and just what that questioning focused on.
For that reason I found it more difficult to evaluate what the attorneys were doing because commonly the attorneys will stress themes they developed in pre trial questioning including even using key words and stock phrases developed by the jurors themselves.
That being said I was also surprised the presentation of the attorneys who often seemed too willing to engage each other in baiting type tactics such as when Gerry Spence offered that the only thing silent about Mr. Bugliosi was the pronounciation of the "g" in his name. It's been my solid experience that jurors are overwhelmingly offput by such behavior.
Likewise I was surprised at the periodic histrionics of counsel. While jurors are often ready to accept a well crafted metaphor they quickly bristle at long irrelevant stories more fueled by the orator's sound of his own voice than by any clear relevance to the case.
Additionally while I understood that there was a broadcast mandate for brevity I was surprised at the speed of counsel's presentation. Vincent Bugliosi made many, many good points but often so quickly you missed some of them.
All that being said, it was interesting just how much material was developed in the mere five and a half hours this DVD lasted. For a more thorough presentation I heartily recommend the Bugliosi book Reclaiming History (at a thinly typeset 1500 plus pages much more lengthy than either War and Peace or Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).
So: did Lee Harvey Oswald murder President Kennedy and if so did Oswald act alone or as part of a conspiracy?
While my personal prejudices would be to say "yes" and "no" in those orders (just as this jury decided), I leave the reader to the evidence itself and their own best discretion.
On the more important question of the ability of American courts to deliver justice I remain hopeful and am occassionally vindicated in that hope.
DVD Review: OK for TV, but somewhat disappointing from a legal standpoint
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased this DVD after reading the lengthy book, "Reclaiming History" by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor in the mock trial presented here. Like many people I have always believed in the probable existence of a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, nevertheless, my mind was changed after reading the very lengthy Bugliosi book. Frankly, I was unaware that a mock trial had ever taken place until reading of it in this book. Learning that Gerry Spence had been the defense attorney, and being an attorney myself, I was very eager to get a chance to see these two attorneys cross swords in a courtroom.
Unfortunately from an attorney's perspective, this DVD presentation of the mock trial was disappointing. From the very beginning I was shocked at the degree to which Mr. Bugliosi persisted in leading his witnesses, seemingly with no objection from Mr. Spence. I realize that leading the witnesses in a mock trial for television might be simply a means of saving time, but when Mr. Spence did finally object, he did so with a statement that he did not usually object to his opponent leading witnesses during trial testimony. Somehow I found this statement difficult to believe.
Naturally the trial made use of the Zapruder film. Unfortunately, however, the viewer was provided with no view of the diagrams of the wounds or bullet paths that played so important a role in determining whether Oswald acted alone or only as part of a conspiracy. I know that the jurors in the mock trial were made aware of those photos and diagrams since I saw some of the blow-ups of them in the courtroom. Perhaps if I had not seen them or already known of their existence, I would not have felt as cheated as a viewer by not having them presented as part of the trial on the DVD.
Lastly I must comment on the brevity of the closing arguments presented by both the prosecution and the defense in this DVD. Again, I recognize that there are time constraints when presenting a trial in a televised setting; nevertheless, considering that this might have been "The Trial of the Century" shouldn't we have expected the prosecutor to provide a much longer closing argument than was shown here?
Naturally Mr. Bugliosi considered his case to have been one of overwhelming evidence of guilt but wasn't he taking a big risk by not spending more time referring to the evidence that had been presented to the jury than he did here? Of course had he done so, he would probably have mentioned witnesses and items of evidence that the jury had seen but which had not been part of what was seen by the DVD viewer. The jarring effect that this might have had upon the viewer might have been lessened somewhat had there been a statement at the beginning of each disc reminding the viewer that they were seeing a presentation that had been edited from the much longer presentation that had been made before the mock jury.
DVD Review: A piece of history
Summary: 5 Stars
On Trial-Lee Harvey Oswald.
I was very young when President Kennedy was murdered but I remember it well.
My experience in life tells me that common sense and intuition can tell us something important.
It may be true that Oswald, entirely of his own accord, decided to and did kill President Kennedy.
It may also be very true that he did not.
It is of concern to me that in this and other matters of importance in our world that people who question the 'truth' presented by governments and controlling bodies are quick to be attacked personally, ridiculed and 'destroyed', because they know and/or feel something is not right about the 'truth' they are told about these events.
I believe that sometimes the official version may not be the truth.
In the case of Kennedy and other important events in history I do not believe that always those who come forward with a different version of events are wrong.
Personally I don't know what is the truth in the Kennedy case.
Intuitively however I believe there is good reason to question the official version.
There is simply too much contrary information from too many intelligent and honest people not to wonder what really happened on November 22, 1963.
I saw this presentation in 1986 and I will be purchasing the DVD.
'On Trial-Lee Harvey Oswald' is a piece of history. My respect goes to all who took part in this television trial.
Robert Freeman
Australia
Description of On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald
Among the most heinous criminal acts ever committed on American soil is the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. When accused gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was himself shot to death two days later while in police custody, Americans were denied hard answers to a brutal and bewildering mystery.ON TRIAL: LEE HARVEY OSWALD recalls all of the surviving witnesses to determine the guilt or innocence of the man believed to have murdered JFK. First broadcast by the Showtime cable network in 1986 to mark the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, ON TRIAL: LEE HARVEY OSWALD is a daring, one-of-a-kind experiment with the goal to heal a nation.
November 22nd, 2008 marks the 45th anniversary of JFK s assassination.
Features prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi and defending attorney Gerry Spence, two of the most publicly revered legal minds of the 20th century.
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