Mark Lane, the defense lawyer and conspiracy theorist who coined the term “the grassy knoll,” has died at age 89. Lane’s blockbuster 1966 book, Rush to Judgment, argued that Lee Harvey Oswald could not possibly have assassinated John F. Kennedy by himself, and was partly the basis of Oliver Stone’s JFK. He argued that Dealey Plaza’s “grassy knoll” allowed several shots to be fired at the president without detection. Lane went on to argue conspiracy in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, and at one point represented MLK’s assassin. Lane died of a heart attack in his home in Virginia.
