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

This is an absolutely fabulous post about Jack Ruby by Amy Joyce on McAdam's forum. Bravo, Amy. 

Detective McGee and Swain reported that Ruby's first lawyer, Tom Howard, 
was in the basement jail office at the time of the shooting.  This wasn't 
brought out in the WC investigation or JR's trial though.  I'm very 
suspicious of this, especially since Howard offered that he had been 
having lunch in a diner at the time of the incident. Since Howard was on 
the phone with the judge trying to obtain a Writ between 12:00-12:15 and 
his first recorded meeting with Ruby was at about 2:00 pm (only 2-4 min 
long), it's likely that he spoke to Ruby before Ruby answered questions 
regarding "why" he did it, and was told not to discuss it. At least that's 
what a good and honest lawyer's advice would be, but Howard wasn't honest. 
Since Ruby didn't remember shooting Oswald and had to ask the detectives 
why they were "beating up" on him, I'm confident he couldn't and didn't 
give a reason at that time. Can't very well give reasons for doing 
something that you don't remember doing. It isn't a believable story. 

One of the reasons Jack Ruby's first verdict was overturned was because it 
was questionable that the q/a session with him on the 5th floor of the 
jail had even occurred.  Sure, several claimed that it did but two of them 
(Dean and Archer) were busted for lying about it.  It was that alleged 
conversation that the jury referred to when they established Ruby's intent 
to kill Oswald and voted for the death penalty, but it was inadmissible 
anyway. 

Tom Howard was fired from Ruby's defense team within a month after he was 
suspected of working for the "other side".  Seeing that Howard was at the 
scene of the crime and lied about it, then revealed pertinent information 
to the DA through the DPD, I tend to believe Jack Ruby's claim that it was 
Howard's idea to come up with the "I did it for Jackie" excuse. He had to 
be told what he did and he had to be told why he did it because he 
couldn't remember. As time went on the stories Jack Ruby told about the 
incident were based on the information supplied to him by the police and 
his lawyer.  He never did remember and by the time he was granted a new 
trial he even said that he'd been framed.