Was Lee Harvey Oswald Innocent? Examining the Evidence

Introduction: The Unanswered Question

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 PM on November 22, 1963. Within ninety minutes of the killing, a twenty-four-year-old former marine and alleged Communist was arrested by the Dallas police from a local movie theater and charged with the killing of a Dallas police officer and the President. Just two days later, on the morning of Sunday, November 24, Oswald was shot and killed in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner.

As Oswald never confessed to the murder during the brief period of his custody — and was killed before his trial — many questions about Kennedy's assassination still remain unanswered. It is worth noting that Oswald insisted on his innocence throughout, declaring he would prove it when brought to trial. He persisted in his denial despite being questioned for forty-eight hours without the benefit of counsel, and he even refused to admit to the killing as he lay dying. The key question this essay attempts to answer is: would Lee Harvey Oswald have been found guilty in a fair trial had he lived?

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Before examining the evidence against Oswald, one must remember the foundational principle of the American justice system: an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather than cataloguing the numerous conspiracy theories that have been written and debated about Oswald and the President's assassination, this essay examines the evidence available against Oswald and considers whether it proves his guilt "beyond a shadow of doubt."

The Evidence Presented by the Prosecution

The Dallas District Attorney, Henry Wade, held a press conference after Oswald was killed and presented what he called "irrefutable" evidence that Oswald had indeed killed Kennedy. The key claims were as follows.

Palm prints on the murder weapon: Oswald is alleged to have killed Kennedy by firing shots from an Italian-made rifle, which he had purchased through a mail-order service along with a revolver in March 1963. Wade stated at his press conference that Oswald's palm print was found on the rifle. The FBI later said, "no palm prints were found on the rifle" (quoted in Lane, 1963). One must ask why Wade made this claim at a press conference rather than in court — the answer is that evidence presented at a press conference is not subject to cross-examination. Such a claim would not have survived a murder trial.

Paraffin tests on both hands: Wade stated that paraffin tests on Oswald showed that he had fired a gun recently. When a reporter asked whether Oswald had fired a rifle specifically, Wade repeated only "a gun." He neglected to mention that tests had also been conducted on Oswald's face, which showed no traces of gunpowder — a significant omission, since people who fire a rifle show evidence of gunpowder not only on their hands but also on their face. That finding alone substantially undermines the paraffin evidence.

The murder weapon: Wade informed the press conference that the murder weapon was an Italian carbine, the Mannlicher-Carcano, which Oswald had purchased through mail-order under an assumed name. Yet earlier in the same proceedings, Wade had identified the weapon as a "German Mauser." This description changed only after Wade learned from FBI files the following day that Oswald had purchased a Carcano rifle — at which point he promptly revised his statement.

Witness testimony: Wade told the press that "a number of witnesses" saw Oswald at the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. That "number" of witnesses later turned out to be a single individual who was not even certain about the identity of the person he saw at the window.

Palm prints on the cardboard box: Oswald's palm prints were also said to have been found on a cardboard box discovered at the Depository window from which Oswald allegedly fired the shots. However, Oswald's prints were found nowhere else in the room — only on that one conveniently located carton, which could easily have been moved to the police station where Oswald was held in custody (Lane, 1963).

Oswald's Rifle Capability

Beyond the inconsistencies in the evidence itself, it is highly unlikely that Oswald could have fired with the accuracy and speed required to strike a moving target under the conditions described by the Warren Commission.

According to the Warren Commission's own findings, three shots were fired from the Depository window, with the first and last strikes occurring within a span of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds, from a distance of 177 to 266 feet. The alleged murder weapon — the Carcano carbine — uses a bolt-action reloading mechanism that must be manually operated before each shot. To test whether these shots were achievable in that timeframe, investigators had sharpshooters rated as "master" by the National Rifle Association fire two series of three shots each at targets set at distances of 175, 240, and 365 feet. The times recorded were 8.25, 6.75, and 4.60 seconds for the first series, and 7.00, 6.45, and 5.15 seconds for the second. Out of twelve attempts, the expert shooters matched the required rate of fire only twice (Roffman, Chapter 9).

Oswald's marksmanship record from the Marines rated him as a mediocre shooter. The notion that he could have outperformed master-level marksmen under combat conditions — firing at a moving target from an elevated position with a bolt-action rifle — is, as Howard Roffman concludes, nothing short of incredible.

Conclusion: Reasonable Doubt and a Trial That Never Was

More than enough doubt exists to indicate that Oswald may well have been found not guilty had he lived to face a fair trial. Yet he was condemned as guilty without a trial by the Dallas police, the FBI, and the Warren Commission — an outcome that served to foreclose any deeper investigation into the circumstances of the assassination.

Even setting aside the evidentiary problems discussed in this essay, the American Civil Liberties Union observed after Oswald's killing: "If Oswald had lived to stand trial and were convicted, the courts would very likely have reversed the conviction because of the prejudicial pretrial publicity." The trial that never happened may, paradoxically, have been the most consequential legal proceeding in American history.

Works Cited

Lane, Mark. "Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer's Brief." A Guardian Special. Nov. 22, 1963.

Roffman, Howard. Presumed Guilty. Chapter 9: Oswald's Rifle Capability. A.S. Barnes and Co., Inc., 1976.