Ray Wins Court OK to Continue Appeals

JACKSON, Tenn. — A Tennessee appeals court ruled Friday that James Earl Ray can continue trying to show that he didn’t fire the bullet that killed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Though the state Criminal Court of Appeals rejected a motion filed by prosecutors that would have stopped the effort, it did so on very narrow grounds and agreed that two Memphis judges have overstepped their authority in issuing orders in the case.

Judge Joe Brown has been considering a second round of ballistics tests on the rifle authorities say Ray used to kill King.

Judge John Colton Jr. wanted to appoint a special investigator to subpoena witnesses and take sworn testimony about a possible murder conspiracy in King’s death.

The court said Colton would be acting without authority in making the appointment. Brown may order new tests, but he also acted improperly in ordering the FBI to turn over bullets it tested from Ray’s rifle in 1968, the court said.

“A judge is a fair and impartial adjudicator, not an investigator,” the court said.

“In this regard we find that Judge Joseph D. Brown Jr. has crossed this line. Upon review of the record as a whole, we are disturbed by the trial judge’s handling of these procedures.”

Ray has been trying for more than 28 years to take back his guilty plea to killing King in Memphis in 1968. The plea has been upheld eight times by state and federal courts.

Brown ordered new tests on Ray’s rifle and the death bullet in May, but they ended with the same inconclusive results as similar tests by the FBI and a U.S. House committee in 1978.

Prosecutors argued that Ray, 69, has exhausted his appeals in Tennessee courts and that the judges had no authority to deal with claims that Ray was set up to take the blame for King’s murder.

King’s son Dexter made a surprise appearance in court Friday. King’s family has supported Ray’s efforts to get a trial, saying it would help clear up questions about whether there was any government conspiracy to kill the civil rights leader.

“I think the state has every obligation to pursue justice until justice prevails,” Dexter King said after the hearing.

“The state continues to be obstructionist.”

Prosecutors said the judges violated the state constitution’s separation of powers by taking on duties reserved for prosecutors.

“Neither Judge Brown nor Judge Colton has the authority to issue these orders,” prosecutor Kathy Morante argued.

Ray’s lawyers charge that prosecutors are afraid of what more investigation will find.

“What the local district attorney may fear is the fact that ultimate testing might eliminate the alleged murder weapon as the weapon that killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” they said in their brief to the appeals court.