Mark Lane (author)

Mark Lane (February 24, 1927 – May 10, 2016) was an American attorney, New York state legislator, civil rights activist, and Vietnam war-crimes investigator. Sometimes referred to as a gadfly, Lane is best known as a leading researcher, author, and conspiracy theorist on the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Lane authored or co-authored a dozen books, including five on the JFK assassination, the most notable of which was Rush to Judgment (1966). It reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list. The book was written as a trial lawyer's adversarial argument against the methods and conclusions of the Warren Commission. Lane's lifelong involvement with the JFK assassination began shortly after the events in Dallas when he was retained by Marguerite Oswald, mother of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, to represent her murdered son before the Warren Commission. Lane later defended other publicly scorned outcasts such as convicted assassin James Earl Ray, American Indian Movement activists Dennis Banks and Russell Means, and cult leader Jim Jones. One of Lane's most gratifying legal achievements came in 1989 when he obtained the release of James Richardson, an African-American man wrongfully convicted of murdering his own children.