Would it be possible for a defense lawyer to get reasonable doubt by presenting all those conspiracy theories?
"Oswald didn't actually kill Kennedy, it was the guy on the grassy knoll!"
I don't believe there was anyone on the grassy knoll, but there is testimony from at least a dozen people who were on Dealey Plaza that day saying there was. If they testify, the lawyer could convince 1 or 2 jurors of this theory, and possible get Oswald acquitted?
Oswald would still get convicted of the murder of officer J.D. Tippit, but Oswald being found not guilty for the murder of JFK would still be shocking in itself.
And yes, his lawyer would need to convince Oswald from hurting his own case with his Marxist rhetoric.![]()
The fact that there were so many conspiracy theories might make raising a reasonable doubt quite difficult. A wise defense lawyer tries to present an alternative theory of the case; where there are so many possible alternatives (admittedly very few, if any of them, very plausible) it's harder for the defence to come up with a coherent counter-narrative about what happened. On the whole, cases tend to "gell" - we end up knowing by and large what happened because the facts tend to come together to reveal a single, convincing story. The fact that there were so many theories about who killed JFK and why shows just how little evidence there was supporting any one of them - except the theory that Oswald was a lone assassin.