JFK Conspiracy Theorist Robert Groden goes 81-0 with Latest
Win Against City Censors
Wanted to go ahead and let you know, since apparently nobody
else is going to do the story, that Robert Groden, the Kennedy assassination
author, has won yet another legal victory in his fight against the city's
years-long efforts to muzzle him.
And, sorry, certain commenters here, but that's what it is.
This isn't about tidying up a park. It's a campaign to shut down free speech on
the still sensitive issue of whether John F. Kennedy's murder in Dallas
50 years ago was the work of multiple conspirators.
Don't believe me? Still think it's Groden who's the out-of-line wack-job? Groden's virtually unbroken record of judicial exoneration in 81 separate arrests or tickets by the city is now crowned by a recent decision of County Criminal Court of Appeals Judge Kristin Wade. Wade said the same thing a parade of judges have said before: It's the city that's outside the law in this.
Don't believe me? Still think it's Groden who's the out-of-line wack-job? Groden's virtually unbroken record of judicial exoneration in 81 separate arrests or tickets by the city is now crowned by a recent decision of County Criminal Court of Appeals Judge Kristin Wade. Wade said the same thing a parade of judges have said before: It's the city that's outside the law in this.
Wade was ruling on the most recent arrest, which took place June 13, 2010 , in which the city
charged Groden with ... he was charged with the offense of ... but that's part
of the problem, isn't it? The city arrested him in Dealey
Plaza where he lectures and sells
self-published magazines. They threw him in jail. But then they couldn't quite
say what he had done wrong.
Wade takes note of the city's vacillation. In her opinion
upholding a trial judge's decision to quash the case against Groden, Wade
points out that the city changed its mind twice about what Groden had done
wrong after they arrested him and put him in jail. And they still couldn't come
up with a crime.
Know why? There was no crime. There was no city law banning
Groden from giving lectures in Dealey
Plaza and selling magazines, books
and videos that explain his theories. Since then, in a classic case of tardy
barn-door closing, the city has enacted an ordinance it thinks would cover
Groden's case. Groden's lawyers think the new ordinance, yet to be tested,
reeks of violation of free speech. More on this in my column in the newspaper
next week.
The point is this: Before the 2010 arrest the city of Dallas
had 80 instances in which it had been warned by judges that it was harassing
Groden in violation of his rights and the law. And yet they did it again. This
last time they added some rough treatment during the arrest and a nice long
visit to the jailhouse, a clear expression of that hoary adage of official
oppression, "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."
Groden has a federal civil rights lawsuit in the works
against the city. That suit has been in legal limbo for two years waiting for
this appeals court shoe to fall. I'm not sure how that works. I will explain it
in the paper next week. But he tells me this new verdict will open the door for
the civil rights case finally to proceed.
Groden is a New York Times list best-selling
author and in 1978 was the forensic photographic consultant to the Select
Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. The select
committee was formed after Groden obtained a copy of the Zapruder film, which
had been owned and suppressed by LIFE magazine.
When Groden got the film aired on television, a shocked
national audience saw President Kennedy's head clearly slammed in the opposite
direction it would have been pushed by a bullet from the sniper's perch on the
sixth floor of the School Book Depository. The final report of the committee stated it had found
evidence establishing "a high probability that two gunmen fired at
President John F. Kennedy."
It is this version of things that Groden preaches inDealey
Plaza , often to large crowds of
tourists who come from far and wide specifically to explore the facts around
the assassination.
It is this version of things that Groden preaches in
The efforts by the city to silence him often have been aided
and abetted by the Sixth Floor
Museum , which has become the
official enforcement arm of the no-conspiracy theory in Dallas .
Nothing like a "museum" that gets people arrested for disagreeing
with it, eh?
I do a weekly radio show on KNON at
But as we roll up on the 50th anniversary observations next
November, with the city already planning hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
of special security to shut people like Groden out of Dealey
Plaza on the big day, I do have to
wonder.
Is there still somebody around who's got something big to
hide on this? Because I can't come up with another explanation. Otherwise,
Groden and all the other Warren Commission skeptics would be the best tourist
attraction Dallas ever had.
Why? Does the city actually want to look guilty? Does it not
get that doing stuff like tossing Groden in the slammer over free speech makes
the city look guilty? Amazing, really. So very strange.
More on this at 10 a.m.
on KNON 89.3 next Saturday (plug-plug-plug) and in the paper next week. If
nothing else, it's just kind of a weird town, is it not?
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