ON THIS DAY

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14 March, 1964:

Jack Ruby found guilty.

Mugshot of Jack Ruby taken November 24, 1963, after his arrest for killing Lee Harvey Oswald.

Jack Ruby (1911 – 1967) was an American nightclub owner who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Ruby shot and mortally wounded Oswald in Dallas Police Headquarters and was immediately arrested. The shooting happened on live television.

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

On March 14, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice and was sentenced to death, the first courtroom verdict to be televised in the United States.

Ruby's conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the grounds that "an oral confession of premeditation made while in police custody" should have been ruled inadmissible, because it violated a Texas criminal statute. The court also ruled that the venue should have been changed to a Texas county other than the one in which the high-profile crime had been committed. He was granted a new trial, but Ruby fell ill, was diagnosed with cancer, and died of a pulmonary embolism on January 3, 1967.

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald, that Ruby shot Oswald on impulse and in retaliation for the Kennedy assassination. The commission's findings have been supported by some writers but also challenged by various critics who hypothesise that Ruby was part of a conspiracy surrounding the Kennedy assassination.

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