Jury picked in civil suit over MLK Jr. assassination

Jury picked in civil suit over MLK Jr. assassination

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (November 16, 1999 7:23 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Family members of Martin Luther King Jr. hope a trial stemming from a lawsuit they filed will uncover new details about the civil rights leader's assassination.

The family filed the wrongful death lawsuit last year against Lloyd Jowers, who claimed on national television in 1993 that he hired King's killer - and it wasn't James Earl Ray. Jowers has since refused to discuss his claim.

A jury was selected to hear the case Monday.

"We just want all the evidence to be presented and speak for itself," Dexter King, son of the slain civil rights leader, said told The Commercial Appeal on Monday. "And hopefully (it will) bring our final, legal remedy to an end."

The jury was scheduled to begin hearing testimony Tuesday. The trial is expected to last about two weeks.

The King family has tried for years to get court hearings on their belief that the killing resulted from a conspiracy, not a single gunman.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Jowers and "unknown coconspirators." Jury selection started Monday and the trial is expected to last two weeks.

King was felled by a rifle bullet in 1968 in Memphis while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum.

Ray confessed shortly after King's slaying and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He recanted soon after pleading guilty, claiming he was set up by a smuggler he knew only as Raul. He died in April 1998.

Authorities say Ray fired the fatal shot from a second-floor bathroom window in a nearby building. Jowers owned a restaurant on the ground floor of the building.

Authorities say they still are convinced Ray was the killer, and that his fingerprints were on the rifle they believe the murder weapon.

But Jowers has told the Kings the fatal shot actually was fired from a brushy area behind the restaurant and that the shooter handed him the rifle moments after the assassination. Jowers claims he gave the rifle to an unidentified conspirator the next day.

Jowers has said he was paid $100,000 to hire the killer, whom he refused to identify, as a favor to a now-deceased man who allegedly had links to organized crime.

Ray's confession was upheld eight times by state and federal courts, and a congressional committee on assassinations also concluded he was the trigger man, though it said he may have had help before or after the slaying.