Mr. RUBY. That’s correct.
Mr. SPECTER (continuing). Because the car was parked there?
Mr. RUBY. Yes; and his back was turned to me.
Mr. SPECTER. To state it differently, did the presence of the
automobile and the fact that he was talking to Lieutenant Pierce
obscure the vision of the officer who was on duty guarding that
entrance or exit?
Mr. RUBY. Yes; and I walked down because I didn’t know they were
guarding it—that there was anything going on there, you know?
Mr. HERNDON. Well, with that question, I can see his area of conflict
here.
Mr. TONAHILL. What you want to know is was he in the basement, but he
was out on the sidewalk. I think that’s a straight question.
Mr. ALEXANDER. “Were you in the basement or were you on the sidewalk
when Lieutenant Pierce’s car came out?” How about that?
Mr. HERNDON. Yes, I will revise that one question and break it down.
Mr. TONAHILL. Yes, that’s a very good question.
Mr. HERNDON. All right, Mr. Ruby, will this question create any problem
for you? “Were you on the sidewalk at the time Lieutenant Pierce’s
car”—I had “drove out,” but was he driving out or was he parked there?
Mr. RUBY. When I noticed him he was already—he was stationary. He was
parked. He had stalled there or something.
Mr. SPECTER. “Were you on the sidewalk at the time Lieutenant Pierce’s
car stopped in front of the guard at the exit?”
Mr. RUBY. Yes, yes. Why do you say “stopped at the exit?”
Mr. TONAHILL. At the ramp exit.
Mr. HERNDON. “The ramp exit”—that makes it specific.
Mr. Ruby, your question will then be, “Were you on the sidewalk at the
time Lieutenant Pierce’s car stopped on the ramp exit?”
Mr. RUBY. Yes.
Mr. HERNDON. Or, would you prefer “at the ramp exit?”
Mr. RUBY. That’s okay.
Mr. HERNDON. Let’s leave it “on the ramp exit.”
Another question I will ask, “Did you enter the jail by walking through
an alleyway?”
Mr. RUBY. What do you call an alleyway—a ramp?
Mr. TONAHILL. It’s a ramp, it isn’t an alley. It goes under the
building and comes out.
Mr. SPECTER. That’s all right, we’ll stand on that.
Mr. HERNDON. You will stand on that question, Mr. Specter?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Mr. HERNDON. In other words, you can answer that as you want to?