Jack Ruby Trial: 1964

Late on the afternoon of Thursday, March 12, the prosecution presented its rebuttal of findings on Ruby's electroencephalograph (EEG) testified to by a leading expert, Dr. Frederic A. Gibbs of Chicago. His written conclusion had been that the EEG recordings "show seizure disorders of the psychomotor variant type." Gibbs had refused earlier invitations to appear in person as a witness. Now, hearing disagreement on his opinion, he flew to Dallas that Thursday evening and testified the next morning without a fee. Standing before the jury with the EEG tracings, he said, "Jack Ruby has a particular, very rare, form of epilepsy. The pattern occurs only in one-half of one percent of epileptics. It was a distinctive and unusual epileptic pattern."

Prosecutor William Alexander tried to get Dr. Gibbs to say that psychomotor variant epilepsy was not a disease. "I say it is a disease," said the doctor, "that is diagnosable from a brain-wave reading."

Judge Joe Brown's charge to the jury and defense and prosecution closing arguments went to well past 1:00 A.M. on Saturday, March 14. That afternoon, the jury deliberated for only two hours and 19 minutes before finding Jack Ruby "guilty of murder with malice, as charged in the indictment, and [we] assess his punishment at death."

More than two and a half years of appeals followed. On October 5, 1966, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that Ruby's statements to police immediately after shooting Oswald should not have been admitted as evidence and that he should have been granted a change of venue.

A new trial was scheduled for Wichita Falls, Kansas. However, when that city's sheriff traveled to Dallas to get Ruby in December 1966, he found him too sick to move. Jail doctors had not taken Ruby's stomach complaints seriously, but Parkland Hospital physicians now found cancer in his liver, brain, and lungs. He died on January 3, 1967, before being able to receive a new trial.