ROBERT HARRIS SAID:
The envelope which supposedly contained WC exhibit CE842 was obviously altered, with initials overwritten on partially or totally erased previous characters.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Prove it.
Re: The chain of custody for Commission Exhibit No. 399:
Since you don't trust the FBI any further than you can throw them, it wouldn't matter if Rowley and Johnsen had identified CE399 or not. We'd still have CTers of your general ilk who would simply claim, "The FBI lied when they said that Johnsen and Rowley positively identified CE399 from their markings on the bullet".
This same kind of general distrust of the FBI has led you, Robert Harris, to believe that the FBI lied in CE2011 when they said that Elmer Todd said he saw his initials on CE399.
I, however, don't belong to such a group of distrusting disbelievers. The FBI document, CE2011, says that Todd identified CE399 via his own initials being seen on the bullet--and I believe that's true.
If the conspiracy theorists of the world want to think that the FBI lied in CE2011--fine. It won't be the first time a CTer thinks somebody lied in this case. But, I, on the other hand, am always very careful about who it is I label as a "liar".
You, however, Bob Harris, don't care how many people you have to label with the L word in order to make your conspiracy fantasy come true in your mind. If the number of lying scumbags reaches 200, that's just fine with Robert Harris. Then 200 liars it will be.
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CHAIN-OF-POSSESSION ADDENDUM:
On September 6, 1997, John McAdams said this:
[Quote On:]
"OK, let's start with where it [CE399] ended up (Frazier and the FBI) and work backwards. Frazier testified about how he got the bullet from Elmer Todd (3H428). Both Todd and Frazier had marked their initials on the bullet (CE 2011).
Todd had gotten the bullet from James Rowley of the Secret Service. Rowley had gotten it from an agent, Richard Johnsen. Johnsen filed a report about getting the bullet (18H798-799), and forwarded a note along with the bullet (18H800). The note said, in part, " . . . the attached expended bullet was received by me about 5 minutes prior to Mrs. Kennedy's departure from the hospital."
The note further named the "person from whom I received this bullet" as O.P. Wright.
I can't find any WC testimony from O.P. Wright, although CE 2011 records that he passed the bullet along. And then, we have Tomlinson's WC testimony that he gave the bullet to Wright, and Johnsen's written statements that he got the bullet from Wright.
Further, [Josiah] Thompson interviewed Wright in 1966. He managed to get Wright to say that CE 399 didn't look like the bullet that he had handled, but he never for an instant denied getting the bullet from Tomlinson and giving it to Johnsen. [Six Seconds In Dallas, p. 175.]
Translation: CE 399 would have been perfectly admissible. At most, the Oswald prosecution would have had to call some of these guys to the stand.
Of course, this "admissibility" business is a red herring anyway. Evidence can be admissible, and forged, or inadmissible and absolutely dispositive where *historical* judgments are concerned."
[End Quote]
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/cece399.txt
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ADDENDUM #2:
John McAdams also says this on his website:
"Bullets and other physical evidence need not be marked to be admissible in trails. This brief submitted by the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson civil trial makes this clear."
Culled from the above link:
"To establish a proper chain of custody for the physical evidence at issue, rendering that evidence (and the various tests thereon) admissible, Goldman need only "show to the satisfaction of the trial court that, taking all the circumstances into account including the ease or difficulty with which the particular evidence could have been altered, it is reasonably certain that there was no alteration." People v. Riser. 47 Cal. 2d 566, 580 (1956). Where there is only "the barest speculation that there was tampering, it is proper to admit the evidence and let what doubt remains go to its weight." Id. at 581; accord People v. Lozano, 57 Cal. App. 3d 490, 493-96 (1976)."
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David Von Pein
May 19, 2010
