Loyd Jowers trial

In 1993, Loyd Jowers was interviewed 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. Jowers owned a restaurant, Jim's Grill, very near the Lorraine Motel, where King often stayed while in Memphis and where the assassination took place. 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. ==Trial and decision==

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. 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?" They found Jowers responsible, and also found that "government agencies" were among the co-conspirators. 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." James Douglass and a local Memphis TV reporter were the only journalists to cover every session of the proceedings. The U.S. mainstream press did not treat the verdict as a significant development in Dr. King's assassination. In its summary of the trial, The New York Times reported that "a vast conspiracy [was] alleged but not proved." The weekly magazine U.S. News & World Report characterized Pepper as "a man prone to bizarre conspiracy theories", and quoted King biographer Dave Garrow who called the verdict "almost meaningless". ==Result and criticism==

The result in the Jowers trial prompted 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. 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. 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." 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." 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. ==See also==