Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

My cousin Michael Skene died on March 22, and today was the day of his memorial service. Over 200 people congregated to honor him. 

Although we were cousins, we were more like brothers. Michael was also my roommate in college at UCLA. 

Mike was the same age as I am, 63. He died of cancer. He lived most of his life with a condition known as Crohn's disease, which is similar to colitis except that it's higher up. It's well known that the chronic inflammation of Crohn's disease can develop into cancer, and in his case, it did. 

But, even though Michael lived with Crohn's disease since he was a teenager, he lived a very full and accomplished life. He became a lawyer, and he was an extremely good one.  He knew the law very well, and he was a courtroom lawyer, a daunting litigator. He had a beautiful wife, Denise, and they had three beautiful children. 

Despite his illness, Mike was very athletic. He volunteered to be the soccer coach for the local high school and actually took the team to the State finals. He wrote two books: one was a chronicle of the wartime experiences of our Uncle Mike who stormed the beaches at Normandy on D-Day. And the other was a very creative allegory about fallen angels who had been kicked out of Heaven but wanted to appeal their case to God. So, they figured they needed the best lawyer there ever was, and they settled on Abraham Lincoln. So, they travel to Earth and back in time to find him to argue their case. I read it and was very amused. 

The last time I saw Michael was at the OIC JFK Truth Conference in Santa Barbara on November 22. He was already designated terminal then, but he was well enough to drive up from Agoura and attend the conference. He stayed for it all. That evening, he and I and Linda went out to dinner together. Linda had met Michael several times before at various family gatherings. And that night, Michael got to see two of his cousins- me and Tony Longo- perform the song, "He Didn't Do It" about the innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald. 

Years before, Michael had read, at my request and because I sent it to him, the book JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglass, and he spoke highly of it. Michael was only 13 years old when JFK got killed, and of course he was a long way from being a lawyer. But, it has occurred to me that if Lee Harvey Oswald had had Michael Skene defending him, it would have been all over for the State. He'd have made mincemeat out of them.  Was he as good as Mark Lane? You bet. Mike was as good a lawyer as Mark Lane. He was as good as anyone you could name.