Judge Brandon Birmingham

The Rule of Universal Reasoning

While discussing the Robert Durst trial on Law & Crime’s Morning¹ Docket with Jesse Webber, the “Rule of Universal Reasoning” came on full display. Find out all about it, including a great example from Timothy McVeigh’s trial.

Principle of Connective Force

While discussing South Carolina vs. Nathaniel Rowland on Morning Docket on Law and Crime,¹ the principle of connective force came up for discussion. What is it? Read More

2 Nifty Tools for the Criminal Practitioner – An Old Treatise and an Amazing Online Library

Just after midnight one evening a few years ago, some detectives asked me to review a search warrant for some devices that they hoped might lead to the discovery of a missing person. After reading the warrant, I could tell I might someday be confronted with a rare legal question – can you prove a murder case without ever finding the body of the victim? Too curious to sleep, I poured a cup of coffee, fired up Westlaw, and started looking, totally unaware that by sunrise I would stumble across a treatise that altered my career.¹ Here’s how.

Detective Leavelle Knew Why Jack Ruby Killed Lee Harvey Oswald Because Ruby Told Him

Dan Abrams has written a book called “Kennedy’s Avenger” about the Jack Ruby trial. I can’t wait to read it when it comes out on 6/1. I’ve spent a lot of time studying that case, and along the way got to meet Dallas Detective Jim Leavelle. He survived Pearl Harbor, testified in the “Trial of the Century,” retired a legendary detective, and attained the age of 99. While researching a presentation Toby Shook and I did for the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza called “The Assassin’s Assassin,” the tall man in the light suit wearing the Stetson hat in Bob Jackson’s famous, Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph told me all about his experience with Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald. Links to follow.

Why Timothy McVeigh vs. The USA?

I turned 18 the week Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols planted McVeigh’s getaway car near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and commenced to building a weapon of mass destruction out of a Ryder Truck like the one pictured above. I’ve never forgotten that Wednesday morning. Maybe it’s the indelible image of that smoky brown bite mark, or the realization that the war scene from downtown Oklahoma City was on the news, not in a movie. Why study this trial? I couldn’t see the blast from Dallas, but even at 18 I felt it. America changed.

Why Are You So Interested In The Jack Ruby Case?

His case file looked like all the others in the storage facility for the DA’s Office in Dallas: a collection of a dozen or so dusty brown and white banker boxes. The difference? The name written on the outside: Jack Ruby. Read More

$50 Years Ago Today, “Tex” Watson’s Killing Spree Began$

50 Years Ago Today, “Tex” Watson’s Killing Spree Began

He was tall, handsome, and raised in a religious house. As a youth he worked in his father’s grocery store. He was a star athlete at Farmersville high school in Denton, a Texas state record holder in the hurdles. He pledged Pi Kappa Alpha at UNT. And if he hadn’t hitchhiked down Sunset Blvd. in the summer of 1968, he might never have become Charlie Manson’s Chief Lieutenant. His name is Charles Denton Watson. His friends called him “Tex,” and 50 years ago today, he set out on a two-day mission of murder called “Helter Skelter.”

Trove of Unseen Documents Reveal How Jack Ruby Got The Death Penalty

By Stephen Young, Dallas Observer

When now Dallas County District Judge Brandon Birmingham started working in the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office’s cold case unit, one set of files that was forbidden fruit, even for the highest ranking members of the office.

“There, in the warehouse of the DA’s office in a corner, was the file that we were never allowed to touch, the file of Jack Ruby,” Birmingham said Wednesday night at Dallas’ Sixth Floor Museum. “I was always very curious about why that was, what was in there. There was just this mystique about it.” Read More

The Assassin’s Assassin: A Case Study of the Jack Ruby Trial Presented at the Sixth Floor Museum

Thank you to everyone who attended the Jack Ruby Case Study hosted by the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The scanned original casefile can be found here. Keep reading to watch the presentation.