(Part 1 - The First Ricky White News Story) NOV. 22, 1963 ANOTHER STO

(Part 1 - The first Ricky White News Story) NOV. 22, 1963: ANOTHER STORY BLURS THE FACTS SON OF DALLAS COP SAYS DAD WAS 1 OF 3 WHO SHOT KENNEDY By Andrew Likakis In another bizarre twist to a mystery that has haunted Americans for more than a quarter century, the son of a former Dallas police officer plans to tell the world that his father was one of the assassins of President John F. Kennedy. Ricky White, a 29-year-old, unemployed oil equipment salesman in Midland, says he "had no conception of ever, ever giving this story out" but decided to do so after FBI agents began asking questions in May 1988. "I'm telling you a story that has touched me, not only others, and I feel uncomfortable just telling it to strangers," White said during a recent interview with the Austin American-Statesman. Monday in Dallas, White is scheduled to show reports material implicating his father, Roscoe Anthony White, in the 1963 assassination. It suggests that White, who died in 1971, was a member of an a ssassination team of three shooters, that he fired two of the three bullets that killed the president, and that he also killed Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit during the manhunt for Lee Harvey Oswald. Among the material: a rifle with telescopic sight that uses the same kind of ammunition as Oswald's gun; records showing that Oswald and White served together in the Marines; three faded messages that appear to be decoded orders to kill someone in Dallas in November 1963; and a son's recollections of his father's incriminating diary - a document that is missing. The press conference is being sponsored by two private groups - the JFK Assassination Information Centre of Dallas and the Assassination Archives and Research Centre of Washington - and some Midland Businessmen. The possibility of Ricky White's story being a hoax - a falsehood concocted either by Ricky or his father - has not been dismissed by the people urging him to publicly talk about the matter. During the last 27 years, many private researchers have claimed to have found evidence of a conspiracy, only to be proved wrong or deceitful. Bernard Fensterwald, executive director of the Assassination Archives and Research Centre, says if there was a conspiracy, Ricky White may have the key. "I think it's our best shot," he says, "and we better take it." J. Gary Shaw, co-director of the JFK Assassination Information Centre, says he hopes White's story will result in an investigation of the assassination by Texas authorities. Two Washington-based probes - the Warren Commission in 1963-64 and the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976-78 failed to resolve the enigma of the Kennedy shooting, Shaw maintains. As with previous conspiracy theories, White's story is tantalizing, the evidence intriguing. Yet, as with other theories, it raises more questions than it answers -- such as: Who issued the orders to the so-called assassination team? Why was the assassination ordered against Kennedy? And why is Ricky White telling this story now? AN OSWALD CONNECTION Using clues discovered in his father's effects and relying on available government records, Ricky White says he has determined that Roscoe White and Lee Harvey Oswald probably met in 1957. Ricky White's mother, Geneva, is gravely ill and unable to be interviewed, family members say. According to Military records, both White and Oswald were among a contingent of U.S. Marines, who boarded the USS Bexar in San Diego that year for the 22-day trip to Yokosuka, Japan. In its final report, the Warren Commission published a photo of Oswald with other Marines in the Philippines. All but one of the Marines was squatting on the ground. Ricky White says his father claimed to have been the standing Marine and claimed to have become acquainted with Oswald in Japan and the Philippines. Military records show that Roscoe White took frequent unexplained trips in the Pacific, and Ricky White says that his father's diary described those as secret intelligence assignments. It has been established in previous investigations that Oswald was discharged in 1959 and defected to the Soviet Union. He returned to the United States in mid-1962, settling first in Fort Worth with his

Liberal Arguments Against the Death Penalty

Liberal Arguments Against the Death Penalty The problem with the death penalty was on stark display last week in Arizona. No one disputes that Joseph R. Wood III committed a horrific crime when he killed his ex-girlfriend and her father in 1989. The problem is that Woods execution, 25 years after the crime, went horribly wrong as he gasped, choked, snored, and in other ways resisted the lethal injection that was supposed to kill him quickly but dragged on for nearly two hours. In an unprecedented move, Woods attorneys even appealed to a Supreme Court justice during the execution, hoping for a federal order that would mandate that the prison administer life-saving measures.Woods extended execution has many criticizing the protocol Arizona used to execute him, especially whether it is right or wrong to use untested drug cocktails in executions.  His execution now joins those of Dennis McGuire in Ohio and Clayton D. Lockett in Oklahoma as questionable applications of the death penalty. In each of these cases, the condemned men appeared to experience prolonged suffering during their executions.   A Brief History of the Death Penalty in America For liberals the larger issue is not how inhumane the method of execution is, but whether the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual. To liberals, the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is clear. It reads, Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. What is not clear, however, is what cruel and unusual means. Throughout history, Americans and, more specifically, the Supreme Court have gone back and forth on whether the death penalty is cruel. The Supreme Court effectively found the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972 when it ruled in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was often too arbitrarily applied. Justice Potter Stewart said that the random way that states decided on the death penalty was comparable to the randomness of being struck by lightning. But the Court seemingly reversed itself in 1976, and state-sponsored executions resumed. What Liberals Believe To liberals, the death penalty is itself an affront to the principles of liberalism. These are the specific arguments liberals use against the death penalty, including a commitment to humanism and equality. Liberals agree that one of the fundamental underpinnings of a just society is the right to due process, and the death penalty compromises that. Too many factors, such as race, economic status, and access to adequate legal representation, prevent the judicial process from guaranteeing that each of the accused receives due process. Liberals agree with the American Civil Liberties Union, which states, The death penalty system in the U.S. is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the victim is white.Liberals believe that death is both a cruel and unusual punishment.  Unlike conservatives, who follow the biblical eye for an eye doctrine, liberals argue that the death penalty is merely state-sponsored murder that violates the human right to life. They agree with t he U.S. Catholic Conference that we cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. Liberals argue that the death penalty does not reduce the prevalence of violent crimes.  Again, according to the ACLU, The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime...The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates. The recent death penalty executions have graphically illustrated all of these concerns. Heinous crimes must be met with firm punishment. Liberals do not question the need to punish those who commit such crimes, both in order to affirm that bad behavior has consequences but also to provide justice for victims of those crimes. Rather, liberals question whether the death penalty upholds American ideals or violates them. To most liberals, state-sponsored executions are an example of a state that has embraced barbarism rather than humanism.