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Duke Alum Michael Karmazin Passes Away; Played Role in '67 JFK Trial
1/27/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Jan. 27, 2004
NEW ORLEANS, La. - Michael Karmazin, a college football star at Duke University and prosecutor in the notorious 1967 JFK conspiracy trial of a New Orleans businessman, has died. He was 84.
Karmazin died Wednesday of respiratory failure.
He was a New Orleans prosecutor for 12 years and did research for District Attorney Jim Garrison in Garrison's prosecution of businessman Clay Shaw, said his daughter, Phyllis Karmazin O'Connor of Charlotte. The trial drew worldwide attention by accusing Shaw of having connections to a CIA-led conspiracy that led to President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination.
Shaw was acquitted in less than an hour. Garrison's theories on the assassination were the basis for Oliver Stone's 1991 movie "JFK."
Karmazin was born in Monongahela, Pa., and was an All-Southern and All-American lineman at Duke University. Karmazin played in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1942 -- which was moved to Durham because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor weeks earlier, and ended when undefeated Duke lost to Oregon State.
After college, Karmazin enlisted in the Coast Guard and saw action in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific as a lieutenant.
O'Connor said her father briefly played professional football for the All-America Conference New York Yankees. He was a coach at Duke, North Carolina State and Tulane universities.
Karmazin graduated from Tulane Law School in 1960 and joined Garrison's staff two years later.
He unsuccessfully ran for judge in New Orleans' juvenile court and worked as a lawyer until a stroke pushed him into retirement about four years ago, O'Connor said.
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