Idiopathic Joker
Moderator
The King family and Pepper filed a wrongful death suit against Jowers, nut he never appeared in court, citing his failing health. Getting out of bed to face questions about his role in an assassination may not have seemed worthwhile, since the Kings were only seeking $100 in damages.
The ensuing trial, referred to by the King Center as "The Assassination Conspiracy Trial," was just under a month long. While Jowers did not appear, Andrew Young did, along with TV's Judge Joe Brown. Transcripts of the trial show that much of the testimony focused on the FBI's operations, and the extent to which they targeted Martin Luther King. Witnesses also testified that Ray was not a racist. Civil rights leader James Lawson said in court that when he visited Ray in prison, "I could not discern that he was a racist any more than the rest of us are racists."
This view of Ray flies wildly in the face of accepted wisdom about James Earl Ray—mainly that he was a drifter, a career criminal, and a huge racist. Records show that he appeared to support the presidential ambitions of the segregationist candidate George Wallace. Author Hampton Sides—enemy of conspiracy theorists everywhere—is of the opinion that Ray was in Europe when he was arrested because it was a stop on the way to segregated Rhodesia—now known as Zimbabwe—where he would have been admired by white Rhodesians who loathed Martin Luther King. Another fan of Rhodesia under white rule is alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, who sported a Rhodesian flag patch in a famous photo.
In any case, the jury in the civil trial delivered a verdict saying that Jowers was involved in some sort of conspiracy, and thus liable. The rest of the jury's finding was given as a blanket answer to a very long sequence of questions. It's worth reading the entire transcript of that question from the judge:
Judge: "Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is $100. Is that your verdict?"
Jury: (in unison) "Yes"
The Kings were elated. "We finally got what we had been asking for: The opportunity to get evidence before a jury," Dexter King told the press. Coretta Scott King invoked her husband's words, saying, "My husband once said that the moral arch (sic) of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Today I feel that the jurors' verdict clearly affirms this principle."
The civil court ruling prompted an 18 month inquiry from the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno. That inquiry found no evidence of a conspiracy at all. "The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of which the jury never heard," their report from June of 2000 says. That finding, unsurprisingly, doesn't impress conspiracy theorists much.
Three months later, there was another civil ruling with relevance to the King case. Billy Ray Edison, whom Pepper's 1995 book had accused of involvement in King's death, turned out to be alive, and unhappy that a book was calling him a murderer. He sued Pepper for libel, and in October of 2000, a judge awarded him $11 million in damages.
Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.
The ensuing trial, referred to by the King Center as "The Assassination Conspiracy Trial," was just under a month long. While Jowers did not appear, Andrew Young did, along with TV's Judge Joe Brown. Transcripts of the trial show that much of the testimony focused on the FBI's operations, and the extent to which they targeted Martin Luther King. Witnesses also testified that Ray was not a racist. Civil rights leader James Lawson said in court that when he visited Ray in prison, "I could not discern that he was a racist any more than the rest of us are racists."
This view of Ray flies wildly in the face of accepted wisdom about James Earl Ray—mainly that he was a drifter, a career criminal, and a huge racist. Records show that he appeared to support the presidential ambitions of the segregationist candidate George Wallace. Author Hampton Sides—enemy of conspiracy theorists everywhere—is of the opinion that Ray was in Europe when he was arrested because it was a stop on the way to segregated Rhodesia—now known as Zimbabwe—where he would have been admired by white Rhodesians who loathed Martin Luther King. Another fan of Rhodesia under white rule is alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, who sported a Rhodesian flag patch in a famous photo.
In any case, the jury in the civil trial delivered a verdict saying that Jowers was involved in some sort of conspiracy, and thus liable. The rest of the jury's finding was given as a blanket answer to a very long sequence of questions. It's worth reading the entire transcript of that question from the judge:
Judge: "Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is $100. Is that your verdict?"
Jury: (in unison) "Yes"
The Kings were elated. "We finally got what we had been asking for: The opportunity to get evidence before a jury," Dexter King told the press. Coretta Scott King invoked her husband's words, saying, "My husband once said that the moral arch (sic) of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Today I feel that the jurors' verdict clearly affirms this principle."
The civil court ruling prompted an 18 month inquiry from the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno. That inquiry found no evidence of a conspiracy at all. "The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of which the jury never heard," their report from June of 2000 says. That finding, unsurprisingly, doesn't impress conspiracy theorists much.
Three months later, there was another civil ruling with relevance to the King case. Billy Ray Edison, whom Pepper's 1995 book had accused of involvement in King's death, turned out to be alive, and unhappy that a book was calling him a murderer. He sued Pepper for libel, and in October of 2000, a judge awarded him $11 million in damages.
Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.
