(Testimony of Dr. William Robert Beavers)
Mr. Specter.
in court was coming to a close, and I suspect that the long-expected kinds of feelings probably were not as great as he hoped for.
Mr. Specter.
Do you have anything else to add which you think would be helpful to the President's Commission in any way?
Dr. BEAVERS. I would only say that I think I'll make it my business to read up a little bit on some of the interrelationships between mental illness and polygraph. When I state that I'm not an expert in this area, it's true. If by a combination of my readings, which I plan to do, and my presence here and my previous and present views of Mr. Ruby, I might be of help in forming an opinion, I will be available.
Mr. Specter.
If you find through that course of study that you have anything to add, I'm certain the Commission would be interested in having any supplemental observations or conclusions on your part.
Mr. Fowler, do you have anything you would care to ask Dr. Beavers?
Mr. Fowler.
I am requesting Mr. Tonahill to ask a few questions, if you have no objection, which is not in the way of cross-examination but just by way of a further development.
Mr. Specter.
All right, Mr. Tonahill.
Mr. Tonahill.
Dr. Beavers, during the trial of Jack Ruby for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, Mr. Bill Alexander, the assistant district attorney, sought and obtained a death sentence for Jack Ruby for the murder of Oswald, and I along with other counsel sought far less--an acquittal or at least a number of years. You have noted, have you not, here that Mr. Ruby resents my presence. He says I'm not his attorney and then asked me to do him favors and this, that, and the other, and you have noticed he has tremendous faith and confidence in Mr. Alexander, who obviously is here to, in the event of another trial--and in the event of Mr. Fowler's efforts and mine to obtain another trial for him is successful--he is here to obtain information for the benefit and use of whatever information he can get to get another death penalty.
Have you an opinion as to what goes on with reference to Ruby's mental illness that causes him to put faith in Mr. Alexander and no faith in me. With reference to the question--is his mental state such that he can't aid and assist his lawyers in their efforts to appeal his sentence and try to get him a new trial, and in his defense, and in the management of his personal affairs, is he of such mental incompetency that those things indicate to you that there is something in his mind, something mentally ill about him that prevents him from realizing what is best for him in his dealings with the prosecutor and his defense attorneys, and in connection with managing his affairs and in helping his defense attorneys in his ability, his capacity, his capabilities of handling his personal affairs. What is your feeling about that from what you've seen here today and what you've known from other observations of Mr. Ruby?
Dr. BEAVERS. Maybe I can get it in pieces and parts of that--I don't know. I think the question of mental competency in the hearing that's going to be coming up in the future, at least from what I read in the newspapers, and I think possibly rather than an off-the-cuff answer, you may have to sort of settle for a statement that I made concerning his mental illness, because I don't do a whole lot of legal work, and I would be quite cautious in making a statement concerning the specific legal questions about competency for affairs until I got more acquainted with this particular statute.
In other words, if you're asking me a question about his mental status and the mental illness, maybe I can make some comments.
Mr. Tonahill.
Well, I was trying to do it, but I wanted to give you a little range and you could pinpoint yourself down to such as the episodes here today between the relationship of his own lawyers and his apparent partiality to Mr. Alexander here.
Dr. BEAVERS. This is what I referred to earlier, and I will be glad to amplify it a bit. On the face of it, it seems to me that as far as an awareness and appreciation of reality, there was this jeopardy--that some of the behavior that he had toward Mr. Alexander as far as wanting him very definitely to be in the room when he made certain damaging statements concerning the
|
