The Jack Ruby trial revisited : the diary of jury foreman Max Causey / edited by John Mark Dempsey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Causey, Max, 1928-1997.

Contributor:

Dempsey, John Mark, 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ruby, Jack--Trials, litigation, etc.

Ruby, Jack.

Causey, Max, 1928-1997.

Trials (Murder)--Texas--Dallas.

Trials (Murder).

Causey, Max, 1928-1997--Diaries.

Causey, Max.

Jury--Texas--Dallas--Biography.

Jury.

Texas--Dallas.

Genre:

Biographies.

Diaries.

Trials, litigation, etc.

Autobiographies.

Trial and arbitral proceedings.

Physical Description:

202 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Denton, Tex. : University of North Texas Press, 2000.

Summary:

"The Carl Sandburgs of the future will spend whole lifetimes trying to analyze the drama of this week and this scene. What it all comes down to -- after the assassination of a president, the wounding of a governor, the slaying of a policeman, and the killing of a man nobody really knew -- is little Jack Ruby." -- Syndicated columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, February 1964

"All of this publicity that we were getting was a little exciting but it was far more frightening. Everyone concerned with the security of the jury felt that no good could possibly come from this much exposure of the jury to the public. Later on, many of us were to better understand this." -- Max Causey, Jury Foreman

This was the cauldron into which twelve exceptional and ordinary people were thrown in the winter of 1964, just three months after the public murder of a president only blocks away, followed two days later by the televised killing of his apparent assassin. The first juror selected, and the eventual foreman of the jury, was Max Causey, a thirty-five-year-old administrative engineer with Ling-Temco-Vought. More than the other jurors, Causey was caught in the harsh glare of publicity surrounding the trial.

The men and women who served as the jurors in the trial of Jack Ruby were exeptional in that it became their singular duty to sit in judgment on a man who played a bizarre and bloody role in perhaps the most controversial event of the twentieth century. They were ordinary in that nothing in their lives before or after the trial in February and March of 1964 has distinguished them from millions of their fellow citizens. They lived happily in quiet anonymity with the glaring exception of the nearly four weeks of the Ruby trial. For those few weeks, their pictures, names, and life stories appeared countless times in newspapers and magazines worldwide.

During the course of the trial, Causey kept a longhand diary in a reporter's notebook, beginning on the second day of his term as a juror. He continued keeping notes day-by-day as the trial continued, ending on Saturday, March 14, when the jury delivered its verdict. He then wrote a short epilogue. Later, he wrote a memoir from the diary he kept during the trial. Both the memoir and the diary are presented here, augmented with editor's notes taken from the trial transcripts, books, and newpaper and magazine articles and interviews with some of the surviving jurors.

Causey's memoir and diary are first-hand accounts of one of the most controversial, significant trials of the twentieth century, and reveal new insights into the dynamics of the jury and its deliberations.

Contents:

Section I Diary: February 20, 1964 to March 14, 1964 15

Section II Memoir: "The Trial of a Juror" 37

Section III Voir Dire: Excerpts of the questioning of Max Causey by the defense 103

Section IV Letters 111

Section VI Juror Interviews: J. Waymon Rose, Douglas J. Sowell, Robert J. (Bob) Flechtner and J. G. (Glenn) Holton, Jr. 133.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-191) and index.

ISBN:

1574411217

OCLC:

43864182