DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Since I can't post directly at The Education Forum [as of the date of this post in March of 2009], I thought I'd post this information here (regarding this Education Forum discussion concerning the 1986 TV trial, "ON TRIAL: LEE HARVEY OSWALD").
Perhaps David Healy or someone else who is a current "Education" member can copy this message into a post at that forum, or provide a link to this post (just for "FYI" sake):
William Kelly at The Education Forum wanted to know if the 1986 Bugliosi/Spence mock trial had been "transcribed".
The answer is -- Yes.
Vincent Bugliosi references the "Transcript of On Trial" many times in his book "Reclaiming History", with Vince citing specific page numbers within the transcript each time he makes reference to it as well. And the transcript is huge too, taking up more than 1,000 pages.
A typical "On Trial" citation in Bugliosi's book looks like this:
112. Transcript of 'On Trial', July 25, 1986, pp.994–995, 1055.
I've tried to gain access to the whole "On Trial" written transcript, but I've had no luck in obtaining a copy. Maybe some day I'll get lucky and get ahold of a copy.
I've also tried to obtain (through lawyer Jack Duffy in Fort Worth, a friend of Mr. Bugliosi's) a copy of the entire unedited, 21-hour version of "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald". But I received no reply from Mr. Duffy at all.
I'd love to see what was said during the 16 hours of "ON TRIAL" that ended up on the cutting-room floor. I know that at least one witness had 100% of his testimony cut out of the aired TV version completely -- Jack Tatum.
BTW, if anyone should happen to give this message to the people over at The Education Forum, they could also tell Duncan MacRae that the testimony of the witnesses at the '86 mock trial that we see on the TV screen is almost certainly NOT "unedited".
Duncan seems to think the 5-hour TV version of the 21-hour trial shows "unedited" witness testimony. But that is certainly incorrect (at least as far as some of the witnesses are concerned), seeing as how more than 75% of the whole trial was cut out in the first place before any of it ever aired on Showtime in November 1986.
David Von Pein
March 24, 2009
