Mar. 14, 1964 | Melvin Belli Calls Dallas “City of Shame” after Jack Ruby Death Sentence

Mar. 14, 1964 - After Jack Ruby was sentenced to die in the electric chair for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, defense attorney Melvin Belli cried: “I hope the people of Dallas are proud of the jury they shoved down our throat!” Vowing to quit practicing law if he didn’t reverse the verdict, he went on: “This is the greatest railroading kangaroo court of law in history! Do you believe this is a part of the United States? If this venomous infection spreads throughout the country, God save us all!”
He then called Dallas “a little bit of Russia” and said the jurors “had their minds made up — and they have made this city a shame forevermore. Even in darkest Africa you wouldn’t argue for a man’s life after midnight.” Belli had asked the court to recess last night and let the lawyers argue this morning, but the request was denied.
Belli, a San Franciscan, said that “never, never, never will travelers come to Dallas again and remember it as anything but a city of shame!”
Belli had pleaded with the jurors to acquit Ruby of murder as a sick man with brain damage who shot Oswald on Nov. 24 in the City Hall basement while in a blackout caused by psychomotor epilepsy. He had argued that Dallas, on the defensive over President Kennedy’s assassination, would condemn Ruby to death to prove it is not a lawless city. Ruby will remain in his maximum-security cell on a top floor of the Criminal Courts and Jail Building, where he was tried, while his case is appealed.
If the appeal fails, he will be moved to death row at the State Penitentiary in Huntsville. A spokesman for the Dallas District Attorney’s office said it would be at least two years before Ruby was executed, assuming that appeals were filed and dismissed promptly.

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