Hickman Ewing | |
---|---|
United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee | |
In office 1981–1991 | |
President | Ronald Reagan George H. W. Bush |
Preceded by | Michael Cody |
Succeeded by | Ed Bryant |
Personal details | |
Political party | Republican |
Education | Vanderbilt University (BA) University of Memphis (JD) |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United States of America |
Branch/service | United States Navy |
Years of service | 1964–1969 |
W. Hickman Ewing Jr. is an American attorney. Ewing served as the United States Attorney for the western district of Tennessee from 1981 to 1991. [1] He later served as the special prosecutor overseeing the Whitewater investigation.
Ewing is the son of Addie Carolyn (Young) Ewing and William Hickman Ewing,Sr.,a longtime high school football coach and the court clerk of Shelby County,Tennessee,who served time in the 1960s for embezzlement. [2] Ewing attended Whitehaven High School in Memphis,Tennessee,and graduated in 1960. [3] After graduation,he enrolled in Vanderbilt University and then served as an officer in the United States Navy. During the Vietnam War,Ewing was deployed on Swift Boats in Cam Ranh Bay. [4] After returning from Vietnam,Ewing earned his J.D. degree from Memphis State University law school. Ewing then worked for the US attorney's office as a clerk. Ewing was eventually promoted to a prosecutor and worked on a series of cases against public officials involved in moonshine production. [4]
In 1981,Ronald Reagan nominated Ewing to serve as the United States Attorney for the western district of Tennessee. In 1991,Ewing was removed from the position by George H. W. Bush. [2]
In 1993,Ewing was the prosecutor in a mock trial of James Earl Ray,who pled guilty to assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.,but later claimed that he was innocent and only accepted the plea bargain to avoid the death penalty. The mock trial was televised on HBO. [5]
Ewing was the special prosecutor who oversaw the Whitewater investigation of president Bill Clinton and his former associates at the Rose Law Firm. During a deposition,Ewing was reported to have made a point of avoiding a handshake with Clinton. [4] White House communications director Sidney Blumenthal described Ewing as "a religious fanatic who operates on a presumption of guilt." [6]
Kenneth Winston Starr was an American lawyer and judge who as independent counsel authored the Starr Report,which served as the basis of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He headed an investigation of members of the Clinton administration,known as the Whitewater controversy,from 1994 to 1998. Starr previously served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989 and as the U.S. solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.
Loyd Jowers was an American restaurateur and the owner of Jim's Grill,a restaurant near the Lorraine Motel in Memphis,Tennessee,where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. For the first 25 years after the assassination of King,Jowers testified that he was in the restaurant at the time of the assassination,a fact supported by the other witnesses in the restaurant.
The Whitewater controversy,Whitewater scandal,Whitewatergate,or simply Whitewater,was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates,Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal,in the Whitewater Development Corporation. This failed business venture was incorporated in 1979 with the purpose of developing vacation properties on land along the White River near Flippin,Arkansas.
James Guy Tucker Jr. is an American former politician,businessman,and attorney who served as the 43rd governor of Arkansas from 1992 until his resignation in 1996 after his conviction for fraud during the Whitewater affair. A member of the Democratic Party,he previously served as the 15th lieutenant governor,state attorney general,and as a U.S. representative.
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David Evan Kendall is an American attorney,a graduate of Wabash College,Yale Law School,and Worcester College,Oxford,who clerked with Supreme Court Justice Byron White,worked as associate counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,and has been a partner at Williams &Connolly LLP of Washington,DC since 1981,where he has provided legal counsel to individuals and corporations on high-profile business and political matters.
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William Francis Pepper is a U.S. lawyer formerly based in New York City who is most noted for his efforts to prove government culpability and the innocence of James Earl Ray in the assassination of Martin Luther King,Jr. Pepper has also been trying to prove the innocence of Sirhan Sirhan in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. He is the author of several books,and he has been active in other government conspiracy cases,including the 9/11 Truth movement,and has advocated that George W. Bush be charged with war crimes.
Vanderbilt University Law School is a graduate school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874,it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law School is one of the most selective law schools in the United States and has a 14.25% acceptance rate. Vanderbilt Law enrolls approximately 640 students,with each entering Juris Doctor class consisting of approximately 175 students.
Robert Bishop Fiske Jr. is an American trial attorney and a partner with the law firm of Davis Polk &Wardwell in New York City. He was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1976 to 1980 after earlier having served as an assistant in the office from 1957 to 1961.
Julia Smith Gibbons is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Robert William Ray is an American lawyer. As the successor to Ken Starr as the head of the Office of the Independent Counsel he investigated and issued the final reports on the Whitewater controversy,the White House travel office controversy,and the White House FBI files controversy. Before that he was Deputy Independent Counsel investigating former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy and before that Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
James Earl Ray was an American fugitive who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis,Tennessee,on April 4,1968. After the assassination,Ray went on the run and was captured in the United Kingdom. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty plea—thus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentence—and was sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment.
Martin Luther King Jr.,an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader,was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis,Tennessee,on April 4,1968,at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital,where he died at 7:05 p.m. He was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience.
Rex Armistead was a private detective,Mississippi Highway Patrol officer,and the leading operative for the since disbanded Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Later,he was heavily involved as an investigator for the Arkansas Project,a co-ordinated attempt in the 1990s to investigate then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The project was funded by conservative media billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
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Daniel K. Webb is an American lawyer and public official. He is the co-executive chairman of the international law firm of Winston &Strawn. He is a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and previously served as the Special Counsel in the Iran-Contra affair. As the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois,he was the top federal law enforcement official in the city of Chicago on behalf of the United States Department of Justice. As U.S. Attorney,Webb led Operation Greylord and successfully prosecuted 76 corrupt judges,police officers,court clerks,and lawyers.
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The Loyd Jowers trial,officially the King family vs. Loyd Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators,was an American wrongful death civil suit brought by the family of Martin Luther King Jr. against Loyd Jowers,following his claims of a conspiracy in the assassination of the civil rights leader in 1968. The jury would eventually decide in 1999 that there was a conspiracy perpetrated by Jowers and other conspirators,including various United States government agencies,to murder King and frame James Earl Ray as a patsy.