Jack Ruby talking to members of the press during his change-of-venue hearing

Object number2014.080.0407.0002

Date02/10/1964 - 02/13/1964

ClassificationsPhotographs

Photographer Dallas Morning News Photographer

ObjectNegative (b&w)

Credit LineThe Dallas Morning News Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Donated by The Dallas Morning News in the interest of preserving history

MediumFilm

Dimensions2 3/16 × 2 3/16 in. (5.6 × 5.6 cm)

Terms

Collections

DescriptionOriginal 120mm black and white negative taken by a staff photographer from The Dallas Morning News. Jack Ruby is seated at a table surrounded by a crowd of reporters and photographers in a courtroom in Dallas, Texas. The image was taken in February 1964, during Ruby's change-of-venue hearing. Ruby sits between his lawyers, Joe Tonahill on the viewer's left and Melvin Belli, who is sitting to the viewer's right in front of Ruby with his back to the camera.

Curatorial Commentary

The balding man in glasses seated on Jack Ruby's left is Ruby's first attorney, the late Tom Howard. Howard began representing Ruby immediately after the Oswald shooting, though he left the team before it went to trial due to disputes with lead defense attorney Melvin Belli.

The unobscured female reporter in the center background is the late Patsy Swank, a stringer for LIFE Magazine at the time. In addition to covering Jack Ruby's trial and pre-trial hearings, Swank is credited with alerting LIFE publishers that a Dallas dress manufacturer named Abraham Zapruder had captured a home movie of the Kennedy assassination. - Stephen Fagin, Curator