The Pelican Brief, an irresistible story that begins with the simultaneous assassinations of two Supreme Court Judges.
One October night one of the liberal Judges, A. Rosenberg, is shot in the head while sleeping in his Georgetown home. Two hours later G. Jensen, the Court's youngest and most conservative judge, is strangled, possibly by the same assassin. America is in shock, the F.B.I. has no clues.
Darby Shaw is a brilliant law student at Tulane University in New Orleans when she heard about the two murders. One of the victims, Rosenberg, is the most admired and often quoted law scholar by Thomas Callahan, her constitutional law professor and also her lover. The speculation is that conservatives will be appointed to replace the two Judges.
Darby secluded herself for four days in a law library, digging through briefs, dissents, books, newspapers, essays, and law opinions, trying to discover what the two murdered Judges had in common. By accident, she stumbles upon a topic that the two assassinated Judges had in common: the environment. She has a theory about who's responsible for the killings so she develops what is later called "The Pelican Brief." She gave the brief to her law professor who shared the suppositions with a lawyer friend from his law school days, Gavin Verheek, who now works for the F.B.I. The head of the F.B.I. discovered the suspect had donated money to the President's last re-election campaign, all of which was deemed legal. The accusations against the suspect were dismissed as more speculation by the White House.
Darby's suspect has powerful friends. One evening, outside a New Orleans restaurant, she narrowly escapes an assassin's car bomb. Someone has read her brief. Someone who wants her dead. Alone and frightened, Darby disappears.
After reading an alarming story about the assassinations, including Thomas's, in the Washington Post, she contacts investigative reporter Gray Grantham and convinces him that the F.B.I., the President, and the whole country try to cope with the deaths of two powerful men.
One day Grantham receives a call from a guy nicknamed Garcia who has heard apparently something important about the Judges murders. Grantham didn't put a lot of attention in the calls because this guy didn't say anything relevant. So with no much information that Garcia give him, Grantham met with a security guard that works in the White House, this guard named Sarge gave to Grantham a copy of a document that has information of Khamel an assassin that has to many faces, names, costumes and it was one of the most important targets from the F.
O'Reilly, Bill, and Martin Dugard. Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever. New York: Henry Holt and, 2011. Print.
Assassination has and always will be a hot topic in scandal living circles but in 1865 the topic became even more volatile when Mary Surratt was found to be guilty of conspiring to kill Abraham Lincoln. Surratt, a widow of an abusive husband trying independently support
[2] My analysis primarily focuses on Stone’s film Nixon, but it is noteworthy to mention JFK, since both films were embroiled in heated debates regarding historical authenticity and artistic license. In JFK, Stone pieces together several conspiracy theories as to who was responsible for President Kennedy’s assassination from “real” primary texts, news footage, ear and eye witnesses, and the Zapruder film, among others. In Nixon, Stone uses similar techniques to posit equally troubling theses: the first that Nixon, while Vice President, was involved in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, and, second, that Nixon was directly or inadvertently responsible for the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy. Stone elects to create scenes and embellish information but defends his mixing of fact and speculation: “Of course, there’s license and speculation, but they are based on reasonable assumptions which we’ve discussed with highly reliable technical advisers who lived through the history we’re recounting in the film” (Monsel 206).
Harris M. Lentz, III. Assassinations and Executions: An Encyclopedia of Political Violence. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1988.
At 3:30 P.M. on June 17, 1972, the five suspects were led into the courtroom to begin their case. The burglars were Bernald L. Baker, Virgilio R. Gonzales, Eugenio R. Martinez, James W. McCord, Jr., and Frank A. Sturgis. “The tallest of the suspects, who had given his name as James W. McCord, Jr. was asked to step forward”(Bernstein 18). The judge asked him what his occupation was. McCord said that he was a security consultant that had recently retired from the CIA; however, he was actually the security coordinator of the Committee to Reelect the President (CRP). John Mitchell, director of the Committee to Reelect the President, provided a statement saying that McCord and the other suspects were not operating on either the CPR’s behalf or with their consent.
The defendant within the United States v. Jared Lee Lougher case was charged in federal court with the attempted assignation and attempted murder of federal employees, which came as a result of his shooting spree at the Safeway Supermarket, located in Tucson, Arizona. The shooting occurred on January 8th of 2011 and resulted in the deaths of six individuals and the injury of 13 individuals; the alleged target of the attack was said to be “[Representative] Gabrielle Giffords,” whom was among the injured (Audi, 2011). In addition, among the injured was “Federal Judge John Roll and Giffords aide Gabriel Zimmerman” (Audi, 2011). Furthermore, due to Judge John Roll being a federal judge, Loughner...
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals first found that Johnson alone was the one that was convicted and that his actions were symbolic in nature and under the circumstances of the event that it was held at, the Democratic National Convention. "Given ...
On the night of February 26th, 1945, an allegedly innocent game of Russian Poker turned deadly when defendant Malone, 17, shot and killed William H. Long, 13. At the time of Long’s death, Malone and his mother were living with the Long family. The boys, according to witnesses, were on friendly terms. The gun involved belonged to Malone’s uncle – the teen had taken it the day before the incident. Oddly enough, Long obtained the bullet that would eventually kill him from his father’s room that afternoon. The two boys loaded the gun together and Malone tucked the deadly weapon away in his pocket (Behrens 184-85).
Talbot, David. "The Assassination: Was It a Conspiracy?: Yes." Time. 169 (7/2/2007): n. page. Print.
Debated as one of the most misrepresented cases in American legal history, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald still fights for innocence. Contrary to infallible evidence, prosecution intentionally withheld crucial information aiding MacDonald’s alibi. Such ratification included proof of an outside attack that would have played a major role in Jeffrey’s case.
Meyer, Lawerence. "Last Two Guilty in Watergate Plot." The Washington Post (1973): A1. Online. Available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/013173-2.htm. December 3, 1998.
John J. Sirica spent his younger years at Georgetown University studying law. He worked in a small law firm as an attorney, but became active in Republican Party politics. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated him, as the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for D.C. Being chief judge; Sirica did not use traditional methods in the courts, but instead used his own technique of getting to the bottom of the truth. He played a famous role in the Watergate Scandal and in the murder trial of Robert Louis Ammidown. Finally, I found an interesting topic that was worth sticking with.
A week after James Neaville left the Missouri State Hospital’s psychiatric ward in April 1987, he told authorities that he was hired as an assassin by James Beckman to shoot President Reagan with an Uzi submachine gun. Later, he would t...
Berns, Walter. "Getting Away With Murder." Commentary 97.4 (1994): 25. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 14
Kurtz, Michael L. Crime of the century: the Kennedy assassination from a historian's perspective. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1982.