| King family v. Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators | |
|---|---|
| Court | The Circuit Court of Shelby County, Tennessee Thirtieth Judicial District at Memphis, Tennessee |
| Full case name | Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, III, Bernice King, Dexter Scott King, and Yolanda King Plaintiffs, v. Loyd Jowers, and other unknown co-conspirators, Defendants. |
| Started | November 15, 1999 |
| Decided | December 8, 1999 |
| Verdict | Jury unanimously found Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators (including government agencies) liable of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. and frame James Earl Ray as a patsy |
| Case history | |
| Subsequent action | King family awarded $100 ($182.9 today) they had requested in damages |
| Court membership | |
| Judge sitting | James E. Swearengen |
| Case opinions | |
| Decision by | Jury verdict |
The Loyd Jowers trial, known as King family v. Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators, was an American wrongful death lawsuit brought to trial by the family of Martin Luther King Jr. against Loyd Jowers. The family filed the lawsuit after Jowers admitted in an interview on PrimeTime Live that he had been part of a conspiracy to assassinate the civil rights leader in 1968. The trial occurred in late 1999. The jury unanimously agreed that there was a conspiracy perpetrated by Jowers and other parties, including various government agencies, to murder King and frame James Earl Ray as a patsy. [1] [2]
In 1993, Loyd Jowers appeared on the ABC News program PrimeTime Live . He said he had been paid $100,000 by the alleged Memphis mobster Frank Liberto to help organize the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. [3] Jowers owned a restaurant, Jim's Grill, very near the Lorraine Motel, where King often stayed while in Memphis and the assassination took place. [4] [5] Jowers claimed that besides Liberto, a man named "Raoul" and several Memphis Police Department officers were also involved in the assassination planning and execution. Jowers identified Memphis Police Lieutenant Earl Clark as the shooter. [6]
For 25 years, Jowers had remained silent about King's assassination. But after consulting on an HBO documentary film in which Ray is allowed a mock trial and defended by attorney William Pepper, [7] Jowers spoke to his own attorney, Lewis Garrison, about finally coming forward and giving his account of the conspiracy to assassinate King and frame Ray for the crime. [8]
In November 1999, the trial began in the wrongful death lawsuit. William Pepper represented the King family. The three-and-one-half-week trial, referred to in U.S. government records as simply King v. Jowers, was conducted in Memphis in Shelby County Circuit Court with presiding Judge James E. Swearengen. Thousands of documents were presented; over 70 witnesses took the stand or were cited by deposition, audiotape, videotape, or by other witnesses. [9] [10] Jowers himself did not testify. The frail 73-year-old became ill after three days in court (note: he died the following May) and was excused by Judge Swearengen. Jowers stated through his attorney "that he would plead the Fifth Amendment if subpoenaed." [10]
Some observers commented on what they perceived as a surprising lack of American media interest in the trial. Bárbara Reis was a correspondent for the Lisbon daily Público who attended several days of the proceedings. She was quoted as saying, "Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson's trial was the trial of the century. Clinton's trial was the trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who's here?" [10]
The jury required only one hour of deliberations to reach a unanimous verdict that King was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. [11] They found Jowers responsible, and also found that "government agencies" were among the co-conspirators. [12] The King family was granted the $100 they requested in damages, and they saw the verdict as vindication. King's son Dexter said, "This is the period at the end of the sentence. So please, after today, we don't want questions like, 'Do you believe James Earl Ray killed your father?' I've been hearing that all my life. No, I don't, and this is the end of it." [3] Dexter further emphasized that "the shooter was the Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark." [12] King's youngest child Bernice later said, "It pains my heart that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didn't do." [13]
James Douglass and a local Memphis TV reporter were the only journalists to cover every session of the proceedings. [10] Douglass wrote that in his view, Jowers was never the King family's primary concern: "As soon became evident in court, the real defendants were the anonymous co-conspirators who stood in the shadows behind Jowers." [10] To his point, Coretta Scott King said in a statement after the trial: "There is abundant evidence of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband." She added how the jury found that the Mafia and various government agencies "were deeply involved in the assassination. ... Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame." [1] [2]
The decision caused the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to reopen the case. In June 2000, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that, after looking into Dr. King's assassination, no evidence of a conspiracy could be found. [14] The DOJ said it identified numerous inconsistencies in Jowers' statements. It said the witnesses who supported Jowers during the trial were either not credible or contradictory. Moreover, it claimed there was no proof Frank Liberto was a member of the Mafia. The DOJ suggested that Jowers fabricated his story for financial reward. [15]
Over a decade later, the DOJ's Civil Rights Division documented its disagreements with the trial's evidence, testimony, and verdict. It stated in its conclusion: "the trial's evidence fails to establish the existence of any conspiracy to kill Dr. King. 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. Accordingly, the conspiracy allegations presented at the trial warrant no further investigation." [16]
Gerald Posner, an investigative journalist who wrote the 1998 book Killing the Dream, in which he argues that James Earl Ray was the lone killer, said after the verdict: "It distresses me greatly that the legal system was used in such a callous and farcical manner in Memphis. If the King family wanted a rubber stamp of their own view of the facts, they got it." [17] Robert Blakey—who led the 1970s House Select Committee on Assassinations that probed the murders of Dr. King and John F. Kennedy—also criticized the case presented by Pepper. [18]
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. A black church leader and a son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.
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.
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader who was the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. from 1953 until his assassination in 1968. As an advocate for African-American equality, she was a leader for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. King was also a singer who often incorporated music into her civil rights work. King met her husband while attending graduate school in Boston. They both became increasingly active in the American civil rights movement.
Dexter Scott King was an American civil and animal rights activist, attorney, and author. The second son of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, he was also the brother of Martin Luther King III, Bernice King, and Yolanda King; and also grandson of Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King Sr. He is the author of Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir.
Gerald Leo Posner is an American investigative journalist and author of thirteen books, including Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (1993), which explores the John F. Kennedy assassination, and Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1998), about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. A plagiarism scandal involving articles that Posner wrote for The Daily Beast and his book Miami Babylon arose in 2010.
The National Civil Rights Museum is a complex of museums and historic buildings in Memphis, Tennessee; its exhibits trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States from the 17th century to the present. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel, which was the site of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Two other buildings and their adjacent property, also connected with the King assassination, have been acquired as part of the museum complex.
Martin Luther King III is an American human rights activist, philanthropist and advocate. The elder son of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, King served as the fourth president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1997 to 2004. As of 2024, he is a Professor of practice at the University of Virginia.
William Francis Pepper was an American lawyer who was based in New York City and noted for his efforts to prove government culpability and the innocence of James Earl Ray in the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Pepper also tried to prove the innocence of Sirhan Sirhan in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. He was the author of several books, and had been active in other government conspiracy cases, including the 9/11 Truth movement, and had advocated that George W. Bush be charged with war crimes.
James Luther Bevel was an American minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then as its director of direct action and nonviolent education, Bevel initiated, strategized, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era: the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the 1965 Selma voting rights movement, and the 1966 Chicago open housing movement. He suggested that SCLC call for and join a March on Washington in 1963 and strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
James W. "Jim" Douglass is an American author, activist, Christian theologian, and investigative journalist. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University. He and his wife, Shelley Douglass, founded the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington, and Mary’s House, a Catholic Worker house in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1997 the Douglasses received the Pacem in Terris Award.
James Earl Ray was an American fugitive who was convicted of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After the assassination, Ray fled to London, England 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 movement 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 at age 39. 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. James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful. Ray died in prison in 1998.
The Mountaintop is a play by American playwright Katori Hall. It is a fictional depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last night on earth set entirely in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on the eve of his assassination in 1968.
"The Promised Land" is an episode from the police drama television series New York Undercover, and was first broadcast on February 20, 1997 on Fox. Written by Reggie Rock Bythewood and directed by Don Kurt, it is the 17th episode of the third season, and the 69th episode of the series.
John Karl Kershaw was an American attorney best known for challenging the official account of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, claiming that his client James Earl Ray was an unwitting participant in a ploy devised by a mystery man named Raul to kill the civil rights leader.
The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 is a 2008 documentary short film created to honor the 40th annual remembrance of the life and death of Martin Luther King Jr. Directed by Adam Pertofsky, the film received a 2008 Oscar nomination in the "Best Documentary Short Subject" Category at the 81st Academy Awards.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Records Collection Act, or MLK Records Act, is proposed legislation that would release United States government records pertaining to the life and death of Martin Luther King Jr. Versions of the law have been proposed on multiple occasions, and a complete version was brought to both chambers of the United States Congress in 2005–2006.
Hellhound on His Trail (Doubleday), 2010, is a nonfiction book written by author Hampton Sides, focusing on the characters and events surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Using multiple narratives, Hellhound is an attempt at exploring the psychology and emotion that dominated and divided the United States during the Civil Rights Movement.
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down is a 1989 autobiography written by civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. The book charts his life and work with his best friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in their leadership of the Civil Rights Movement to help African Americans obtain equal rights with white Americans. His book engendered much controversy due to Abernathy's allegations of King's infidelity the night before he was assassinated.
Conspiracy theories about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a prominent leader of the civil rights movement, relate to different accounts of the incident that took place on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, the day after giving his final speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop". Claims soon arose over suspect aspects of King's assassination and the controversial role of the assassin, James Earl Ray. Although his guilty plea eliminated the possibility of a trial before a jury, within days, Ray had recanted and claimed his confession was forced. Suspicions were further raised by the confirmation of illegal surveillance of King by the FBI and the CIA, and the FBI's attempt to allegedly prompt King to commit suicide.
[by Blakey:] Mr. Pepper comes up with, "Oh, how about this?" and "How about this?". Where's the coherent story? Mr. Pepper does not have a[ sic ] alternative, coherent story supported by credible witnesses. Until he does, I'll stick with what we did in '78.
