JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings

[Bolo Boffin]

82. It's not telling. It's not relevant.

There were many bad actors in the world. There were many people who would find a way to benefit from the President of the United States dying. This does not mean any of them did it.

Motive is the one of the most useless things to focus on in an investigation. Looking for motive trips you up. By deciding who has the biggest motive to do the deed first, you give yourself a stumbling block. You decide on your perp first for illegitimate reasons and then you go looking for evidence to justify it. It's counter to legal procedure, it's counter to logic, and it's a rich breeding ground for confirmation bias.

Lee Harvey Oswald came to the attention of the police when he murdered Officer Tippit. His absence had been noted at the TSBD already. A description of the shooter (from, among others, Howard Brennan, the person who saw Oswald shoot JFK) was sent out over the police radio. Tippit stopped Oswald and got shot for his thanks in front of several witnesses. Oswald then fled to the Texas Theater, where upon apprehension he tried again to shoot one of the officers.

He was quite naturally a suspect after that, and as the evidence mounted up, it showed that he was the sole shooter in Dealey Plaza. To date, there has been no credible evidence produced that he was a part of any conspiracy, although the HSCA was willing to allow that individual members of the Mob or the Cuban anti-Castro community may have been in one with him. No evidence precluded this either.

And to convict Oswald of the assassination, no one need prove his motive. Guilt is determined by credible evidence, eyewitness and circumstantial. Motive is useful to demonstrate intent: for example, when someone happens to run over a relative and their large debts and inheritance of the relative's money are revealed, a conclusion that the death was accidental may not be warranted.

But that's irrelevant in this case. Here the actions Oswald took were aiming a rifle at the President and firing three shots, striking him twice and killing him. Having established that, the only thing to demonstrate mens rea in Oswald would be showing he knew that by so doing, he would harm and/or kill Kennedy. Demonstrating his sanity would be the sole need there - not a detailed proof of any motive he might have. That's because motive is so often a matter of interpretation. It's almost useless in criminal cases.

It's the staple of movies and entertainment. But legally? Motive isn't all that. You can continue this quest to publish a motive for the MIC/BFEE killing Kennedy all you like. But in the end, the event isn't about Curtis LeMay in Canada or Michigan. It's not the CIA overthrowing leader after leader in Central and South America (something for which there IS evidence). In the end, determining who shot Kennedy comes down to who was shooting at him.

And Lee Oswald was the only person doing that on November 22, 1963.