Mourning a Diligent, Intrepid Champion of Truth & Justice

Vincent Bugliosi, who died Saturday, was known mostly as the lawyer who carried out the successful prosecution of Charles Manson for his notorious murders and who chronicled that prosecution in Helter Skelter, the best-selling true crime book ever.

Bugliosi
("Democracy Now!")

I learned of Bugliosi as he promoted his book The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, which is an expansion of his piece "None Dare Call It Treason: Five Supreme Court Justices Are Criminals in the Truest Sense of the Word," which generated more feedback than did anything else The Nation had ever published.

Bugliosi had already lambasted the High Court upon penning No Island of Sanity: Paula Jones v. Bill Clinton: The Supreme Court on Trial, which analyzes the decision that allows for a civil lawsuit against an incumbent president of the United States to be heard and therefore distract him from his exceptionally important duties.

In the book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, which is the subject of two documentaries, Bugliosi spells out a case according to which Bush is guilty of having unlawfully killed thousands of US troops by ordering them into Iraq under pretenses he knew to be false.  For as long as Bush lives without a pardon for the misconduct at issue, that case can be brought against him, with regard to any said victim, in a criminal court whose jurisdiction covers the final residence of the victim.

Bugliosi's magnum opus is Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which proves beyond all doubt the murder of the 35th chief executive of this country was committed by Lee Harvey Oswald and which proves beyond a reasonable doubt the crime did not result from any conspiracy.

Bugliosi, with his apt frankness and his passionate devotion to logic and to the rule of law, set a shining example of citizenship, including by waging two campaigns for district attorney of the County of Los Angeles.  Neither ended in victory but he attained a record of 105-1 in felony jury trials as a deputy DA and managed to produce the album Greatest Latin Love Songs of the Century.