Hiding the Truth
Huie’s first two articles caused an uproar. It was the first time the public learned what Ray had consistently been telling his attorneys since their first meeting in Memphis. Although Huie had not yet written about the key days just before the assassination, it was clear that he and the Haneses thought Ray was a pawn in a sophisticated plot to kill Dr. King. Not only did the stories introduce a conspirator by name, but they were also filled with new details about Ray’s fugitive year leading up to the assassination. The FBI even learned new information about the places Ray had been and the people he had been in touch with before King’s murder.1
The stories had great impact because of their timing. They added to the growing perception that while Ray may have been involved in King’s death, likely as the triggerman, conspirators were still free.* Huie’s second installment, concluding that Ray was an unwitting part of the King conspiracy, was on the newsstands on Monday, November 11, just before the trial was to begin. Judge Preston Battle, a sixty-year-old recovered alcoholic, who had issued a pretrial order restricting publicity and barred any reporter from having personal access to Ray, was infuriated. He immediately issued a new order prohibiting all potential witnesses listed by the prosecution or defense from reading any news accounts of the case.*2
Thirty-six hours before the start of the trial, Ray stunned the court by dismissing Hanes as his attorney. Battle had to postpone the trial. Behind the scenes, there had been friction between attorney and client—Ray was angry that the information Hanes had passed to Huie had inadvertently helped the FBI.3 In late September, Hanes had announced in open court that he might withdraw as Ray’s lawyer, and in early October, J. B. Stoner, the racist counsel for the National States Rights Party—the one person whom Hanes had told Ray he would not tolerate as part of the defense team—had visited Ray, at Ray’s invitation.4 Moreover, James’s brother Jerry had met with Huie and was convinced that Huie did not want James to take the witness stand at his trial since it would hurt the upcoming book’s commercial success. Hanes was also against Ray taking the stand. When they met in early November, Jerry warned James that Hanes and Huie were selling him out.5 But the real reason for the dissension between Ray and Hanes was that Ray’s brothers had long been convinced there was a better attorney: the celebrated Houston lawyer Percy Foreman.6 When Jerry and John Ray finally met Foreman, Jerry recalled, he would “tell me about all these other cases he won. Then he says this would be the easiest case he ever had.… He said, ‘They have no actual evidence. I’ve got guys out before where they had evidence against them but they don’t have evidence against James.’”†7
The sixty-five-year-old Foreman at first seemed the perfect choice for Ray. At six-four and 250 pounds, he was not only one of the country’s most physically imposing attorneys, but certainly among its most flamboyant. More important, he boasted that in hundreds of cases, he had lost only one client to the death penalty.8
But Foreman turned out to be a terrible choice, and Ray should have recognized the signs of trouble at their first jail meeting on November 9, the day before Ray fired Hanes. “He got down to business pretty quick,” recalled Ray. But “business” did not mean the King assassination. Foreman told Ray that his initial impression was that Ray would “probably barbecue” and that to defend him his fee would be $150,000, appeals and all. “And then he started discussing a retainer fee,” recalled Ray, “and he asked me about the Mustang and this rifle.” Ray signed over any ownership interest he had in the car and rifle to Foreman.*
Ray also said that Foreman “had these various contracts with him, the ones with Mr. Bradford Huie and Arthur Hanes.”9 Foreman told Ray he did not like the agreements signed by Huie and Hanes and that they were not good for Ray. He did not tell Ray, however, that he had already called Huie and okayed the contracts. “Now, you know, of course, that I’m depending on you for my fee,” Foreman told Huie over the phone. “So tote that bale, boy! Get to work!”10 Two weeks after he met Ray, and had officially become his counsel of record, Foreman met Huie in Fort Worth.† Foreman was blunt. “I like the idea of owning 60% of one of your books while you own only 40%. So you get Hanes out and let me in, then goddamn it, get to work and write us a good book and make us a good movie and make us some money.”11
At that meeting, Foreman told Huie he was convinced that Ray murdered King. Whether there was a conspiracy or not did not matter to him—he only had to worry about his client.12
Since Foreman had concluded early on that Ray had fired the shot, he showed little enthusiasm for investigating the case to discover a viable defense. Foreman visited the Haneses in Birmingham near the end of November. “We offered him everything we had,” recalled Arthur Hanes, Sr., “but he took nothing with him.” Arthur junior agreed. “He wasn’t interested in the case. He wanted to drink some Scotch, eat some dinner, and talk about his famous cases. He also told us about how he made speeches all over the country.”13
Foreman saw Ray only a few times in November, sometimes taking notes, and only once in December, when Foreman came down with pneumonia. On December 18, Foreman brought in public defenders Hugh Stanton, Sr., and Hugh Stanton, Jr., to help on the defense. He told Ray it was necessary to save money.* He did not see Ray again until the third week of January.14 After the guilty plea, Foreman claimed he could not find any of his files or notes on the case. He said that although he had not hired a professional investigator, he had used the volunteer services of eight senior law students from Memphis State University.†15 Yet Foreman could not remember any of their names and was vague about their duties and the scope of their investigation. Foreman’s student investigators apparently never conducted a single interview, and at least one has indicated that the group did no investigation for him.16 Foreman never obtained such basic items as the FBI’s ballistics report, the complete extradition proceedings, or even the affidavit of the state’s chief witness, Charles Stephens.17 He was never able to provide a list of witnesses he interviewed. Although he claimed to have spent seventy-five hours in consultations with Ray, the Shelby County logs reveal that he visited no more than twenty hours. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded this was “an inordinately small amount of time with his client for a case of such magnitude.”18 One of the few things he did was show Ray some photos of three tramps arrested at Dealey Plaza on the day of President John F. Kennedy’s murder, to find out if any of them looked like Raoul.19 One, the tallest, was similar, said Ray.
The Select Committee understandably concluded that “Foreman did not conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on behalf of Ray.”20
If Foreman was lackadaisical in Ray’s defense, he was certainly energetic in protecting his own financial interests. On January 29, 1969, Foreman, Huie, Hanes, and Ray signed a new agreement, in which Hanes returned all his rights to Ray.21 Then, five days later, Foreman signed a separate agreement with Ray in which Ray assigned all his income under the agreements to Foreman.‡22 Huie was dismayed when he learned of that agreement “because with it went my last hope of ever being able to exert financial leverage on Ray.”23 When Huie wrote two more checks to Ray, for $5,000 each, Foreman had Ray endorse those checks to him.24 He told Ray that he needed cash to hire a prominent Nashville attorney, John J. Hooker, Sr., as cocounsel. When Ray asked why he needed another lawyer, Foreman told him that Hooker’s son was going to be Tennessee’s next governor, and that even if Ray went to prison, he would be pardoned in two to three years.25 (John J. Hooker, Jr., ran for governor and lost in both 1966 and 1970.)
Another time, according to Ray, Foreman advised his client to consider selling some pictures to Life magazine or giving an interview to author George McMillan, for which McMillan would pay at least $5,000. “I just told him there is no point in getting involved with any more writers,” recalled Ray. “If we have to associate a writer we will just stay with Huie.”26
On February 13, Foreman visited Ray and for the first time raised the possibility that Ray should plead guilty. Foreman presented Ray a letter for his signature, in which Ray agreed to let him negotiate a plea with the prosecution. Unknown to Ray, Foreman had unofficially been talking to prosecutors about a plea for several weeks. In the letter he gave Ray, Foreman concluded, “In my opinion there is little more than a ninety-nine percent chance of your receiving a death penalty verdict if your case goes to trial. Furthermore, there is a hundred percent chance of a guilty verdict.… If I am able to save your life by negotiation with the attorney general and the court, I will consider it one of the great accomplishments of my career in the court room.”27 Foreman had a small file of papers given him by Huie, covering the basic police reports in the case and some information about Ray’s previous crimes.28 Waving that file and citing adverse pretrial publicity, Foreman told Ray that the jury would be stacked with blacks and business leaders ready to send him to death. He dismissed Ray’s contention that the evidence was circumstantial and that at most he would be convicted of “some sort of aiding and abetting.”29 “He was kind of loud on signing this paper,” remembered Ray. “I know one time I had to kind of keep him down because they have guards and microphones.”*30
Foreman even visited Ray’s family in St. Louis to try to persuade them to pressure James into considering a plea. Although they did not agree, Foreman told Ray they had endorsed the idea of a plea. On February 18, after more pressure from Foreman, Ray relented and signed a letter agreement that officially allowed Foreman to negotiate a plea bargain.31 During the last week of February, Foreman brought Ray a prosecutor’s draft of stipulations concerning facts in the case to which they wanted Ray to agree. The stipulations were detailed, and Ray was to admit to being the sole shooter in King’s murder. For ten to twelve days, Foreman and Ray fought over them. Ray was particularly incensed by a stipulation that he had worked on behalf of George Wallace’s presidential campaign.32 Foreman’s deal was simple: If Ray pleaded guilty, he would receive a ninety-nine-year sentence and avoid the death penalty. The stipulations would become his admissions. Ray knew that if he went to trial and was convicted, he could draw either the death penalty or life in prison. What Foreman may not have told him was that if he were given a life sentence from a trial, he would be eligible for parole in thirteen years, but if he accepted the ninety-nine-year sentence, he would not be eligible for parole until forty-five years had passed. Also, it is not clear if Ray knew that no one had been executed in Tennessee in seven years, and Shelby County, where he was to be tried, was not an easy jurisdiction for prosecutors to win the death penalty.
In the midst of the plea discussions, Ray was distracted by a request from Jerry for money. He needed $500, and Ray asked Foreman to loan his brother the money. Around this time Ray began to feel that if he forced Foreman to trial, Foreman might “have faked the case,” or done less than his best to ensure it turned out as he predicted.33 When Foreman visited on Sunday, March 9, Ray asked him to withdraw from the case. “I thought,” said Ray, “that I had to dismiss Foreman and go to trial with the public defender, and I was worried about that.… The only other possibility was in some manner to defend myself, but that’s a pretty bad thing to defend yourself.”34
Foreman refused to withdraw. Instead, he presented Ray with a new letter agreement he had drafted. In it, he was willing to cap the income he would earn from Ray’s literary share at $165,000, with everything beyond that going to Ray. Moreover, he was willing to give Jerry Ray the $500 and add it to the $165,000. “But I would not make any other advances,” Foreman wrote, “just this one five hundred dollars. And this advance, also, is contingent upon the plea of guilty and sentence going through on March 10, 1969, without any unseemly conduct on your part in the court.” In a separate letter Foreman had prepared, he said he would hold any income earned from Huie above $165,000 in trust for Ray, and he reiterated that he would do this so long as “the plea is entered and the sentence accepted and no embarrassing circumstances take place in the court room.”35
Unknown to Ray at the time, Foreman had told Huie a few weeks earlier that he was confident he could persuade Ray to plead guilty. On March 17, Huie and Cowles Communications (the owner of Look) entered into an agreement whereby Huie agreed to finish a 6,000-word article on why Ray murdered King and Hanes and Foreman would be paid to contribute 1,000-word articles to the same issue. The agreement said, “James Earl Ray is expected to plead guilty, on or about March 10, 1969.”36
Ray relented on March 9 and countersigned both Foreman letters. He had already agreed to the prosecution’s forty-six stipulations. Ray says he naively thought that if he pleaded guilty he could get rid of Foreman, and “later on I would try to engage other counsel and open the case up on exculpatory evidence.”37
The following day was Ray’s forty-first birthday. The official start of the trial was four weeks away. But three days earlier, Battle had ordered a special hearing, telling reporters to be present for “a development in the Ray case.” Dressed in a dark blue suit with a white shirt and a narrow navy tie, his hair slicked back, Ray walked into the packed criminal courtroom shortly after 9:00 A.M. As always, the casual observer would think he seemed more a bank clerk than an assassin, though his face was drained of what little color it normally had.
He almost seemed to shuffle. He cast his head down and stared straight at the floor, not even glancing at his two brothers, sitting uncomfortably in dark suits, nervously wringing their hands in their laps. Once in his chair, Ray looked straight ahead, almost as though he feared that if he looked around the room he might meet somebody’s eyes.
Percy Foreman hovered by Ray. The prosecutors, District Attorney General Phil Canale and his assistants, Robert Dwyer and James Beasley, huddled only feet away near their mock-ups of the murder scene and boxes of documents. Thirty-eight reporters crowded the right side of the courtroom. They were quiet, straining to see any reaction from Ray. Celebrity authors with book contracts already signed, such as Clay Blair, George McMillan, and Gerold Frank—who had with him his engraved invitation to the victory party for defendant Clay Shaw in yet a different trial for a different assassination—were in the rear. Although three seats of the forty-two set aside for spectators had been reserved for King family members, none were present.
Judge Battle, solemn-faced, walked into the courtroom at exactly 9:46 A.M. The bailiff rose and called the court to order.
“All right,” said Battle, his neatly combed hair offsetting a flushed, plump face, “I believe the only matter we have pending before us is the matter of James Earl Ray.”
There had been rumors over the weekend that Ray might use this occasion to fire Foreman. Others said that Ray was about to make a sensational disclosure, or even that Foreman had found a fatal flaw in the prosecution case and would move for a dismissal. But the most persistent gossip—reported in newspapers over the weekend as “unconfirmed reports from Memphis”—was that Ray had agreed to plead guilty.38 That was the hardest to believe, however, certainly not in a case in which the specter of Raoul hung heavily over the proceedings. Reporters and prosecutors were constantly debating whether there was such a person, and if so, what role he had played in killing King. Oswald may have yelled at reporters that he was a “patsy,” but Ray had presented a detailed story to back up his claim—one that was hard to dispute. And the most important part of that story, centering on the two weeks leading up to the assassination, had yet to be published by Huie. James Bevel, one of Dr. King’s former aides, had already announced that he thought Ray was innocent, and even tried unsuccessfully to join the defense team (the judge barred him since he was not a lawyer).39
Even aside from the Raoul story, journalists had raised substantive questions about the state’s case: the chief eyewitness was a drunk, none of Ray’s fingerprints were found inside the rooming house, and reports of a professional gunman at a different position continued to circulate. There were local witnesses who claimed to have heard a mob-associated produce dealer tell someone over the phone, an hour before the assassination, “Kill the son-of-a-bitch, shoot him on the balcony.” And what of the phony citizen’s band radio report that led the police in the wrong direction after the assassination? Could it all be coincidence?
Ray had escaped from a maximum-security prison a year before the assassination—how did he get out and stay free? There were reports he spent extravagantly while on the run—was the money payment for a plot to kill King? Moreover, how did Ray, the country boy from a poor white trash background, a petty criminal, suddenly transform into an accomplished assassin who not only managed to get his prey, but almost got away with it? During his criminal career, Ray was a thief, not a murderer—how could he so coolly stalk his target, pick a perfect sniper’s nest, and then dispatch a single shot as effectively as any professional hit man, without guidance from others? How did a man with an eighth-grade education somehow manage unaided to escape the murder scene, flee to Canada, develop false passports, then move to London, Lisbon, and back to London before a break in the investigation finally led to his arrest after two months, just as he was about to board a plane for Brussels?
“May it please the court,” Foreman began in his deep, resounding voice, “in this case we have prepared, and the defendant and I have signed, and Mr. Hugh Stanton, Sr. and Jr., will now sign, a petition for waiver of trial and request for acceptance of a plea of guilty.” Reporters started scribbling furiously as Foreman handed the petition to Judge Battle. People started talking to one another in the back rows.*
“James Earl Ray, stand,” said Battle. Ray rose awkwardly, one shoulder dipped as though he were afraid someone was about to strike him. He loosely clasped his hands behind his back. His feet were planted slightly apart.
“Have you a lawyer to explain all your rights to you, and do you understand them?”
“Yes, sir,” Ray replied so softly that only a few people heard him. His voice sounded almost feminine.
Battle then asked Ray detailed questions about the plea, whether he understood it, if it was voluntary, and if he knew that by making it he was losing his right to trial and appeal. After some fifteen minutes, Battle reached the critical question.
“Are you pleading guilty of murder in the first degree in this case because you killed Dr. Martin Luther King under such circumstances that it would make you legally guilty of murder in the first degree under the law as explained to you by your lawyers?”
“Yes, legally, yes,” was the barely audible reply. Not a simple yes, but rather legally yes, as if Ray somehow knew that being part of a conspiracy to murder made him legally guilty of that murder. Reporters noted the distinction and were surprised that Battle did not pursue his slight equivocation.
The chief prosecutor, Phil Canale, then rose before the court and summarized the state’s evidence. He concluded, “We have no proof other than that Dr. King was killed by James Earl Ray and James Earl Ray alone.” But it somehow rang hollow. The plea meant Ray would not take the stand, would not be cross-examined, and would tell nothing. There was a sense of palpable disappointment, of growing suspicion in the courtroom gallery.
Foreman followed and endorsed the state’s case against his client, confirming that he accepted the conclusion of Attorney General Ramsey Clark that there was no conspiracy to kill King. Then Judge Battle was given the detailed stipulations to which Ray had agreed, in writing, to each of the elements of the state’s case.
As Foreman returned to his chair, Ray suddenly stood up. Foreman thought he was going to say something to him, but became concerned when he saw that Ray’s gaze was focused instead on Judge Battle. His eyes wide, Foreman froze, because this was not part of the carefully written script. Ray rocked slightly on his feet. Reporters nudged one another that Ray was about to speak. A hush settled over the courtroom.
“Your Honor, I would like to say something too, if I may.”
Everyone in the spectators’ gallery leaned forward to hear the soft-spoken Ray.
Judge Battle was noncommittal. “All right.”
“I don’t want to change anything I have said but I don’t want to add anything on to it, either.” Ray paused for a moment as if catching his breath. “The only thing I have to say is, I don’t exactly accept the theories of Mr. Clark.”
Battle looked confused. The prosecutors grimaced. Foreman seemed exasperated, and interjected, “Ramsey Clark.”
“And Mr. Hoover,” added Ray, seemingly gaining a bit of confidence, his words now distinct and clear.
Battle leaned forward. “Mr. who?”
“Mr. J. Edgar Hoover,” announced Ray. “The only thing I say, I am not—I agree to all these stipulations. I am not trying to change anything. I don’t want to add something on to it.”
Rocking in his chair, Battle seemed uncomfortable. “You don’t agree with these theories?” he asked somewhat incredulously. The courtroom was now utterly silent, everyone looking at Ray.
“I mean Mr. Canale, Mr. Clark, and Mr. J. Edgar Hoover. I mean on the conspiracy thing.” Those were exactly the words no one wanted to hear, especially from Ray. He forged ahead determinedly. “I don’t want to add something on to it that I haven’t agreed to in the past.”
Foreman, who after months of representing Ray had grown accustomed to his roundabout way of talking, again interpreted for the court. “I think that what he is saying is that he doesn’t think that Ramsey Clark’s right or J. Edgar Hoover is right.… You are not required to agree or withdraw or anything else, Jim.” Foreman moved near Ray and almost forced him back into his seat. He was not about to let Ray ruin the carefully crafted plea arrangement by suddenly talking about conspiracy.
There was an uncomfortable silence in the courtroom as Judge Battle considered what to do next. The defendant in one of the nation’s most searing political murders had just interrupted his guilty plea to inform the court that he did not agree with the statements of the prosecutors, the attorney general, and the FBI director that he had acted alone and that there was no conspiracy in the case. Ray had opened Pandora’s box. Should Battle quiz him about collaborators? About Raoul?
Battle suddenly grabbed the sheet from which he had been reading before Ray interrupted him, and waved it. He had decided to give Ray a final chance to finish the plea without any further drama. “There is nothing in these answers to these questions I asked you—in other words, you change none of these.”
“No sir, no sir,” Ray said.
“I think the main question here I want to ask you is this: Are you pleading guilty to murder in the first degree in this case because you killed Dr. Martin Luther King under such circumstances that would make you legally guilty of murder in the first degree under the law as explained to you by your lawyer?”
Ray nodded his head up and down. “Yes, sir, make me guilty on that.”
“Your answers are still the same?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, sir, that is all.”
Foreman and the prosecutors were visibly relieved. Many reporters were disturbed, however, that Battle had not aggressively pursued Ray’s interruption about a conspiracy.
On the way out of the courtroom, a reporter asked a smiling Percy Foreman if Ray had ever admitted to any conspiracy behind the King assassination. “I don’t give a goddamn if there was a conspiracy or not,” Foreman said sharply. “No. I never asked him that.”
Coretta Scott King issued a statement within hours of Ray’s plea restating her belief that Ray had not killed her husband on his own, and urging the government to “continue until all who are responsible for this crime have been apprehended.”*40
The day following the plea, the New York Times editorial page, expressing a sentiment that was widely held, charged that “the aborted trial of James Earl Ray for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a shocking breach of faith with the American people.… By no means, legal or pragmatic, should the doors of the courtroom and the jail be slammed shut on the facts, the motives and the doubts of this horrible murder. And yet that is exactly what has just occurred with stunning suddenness in a Memphis courthouse.… Nothing but outrage and suspicion can follow the handling of this long-delayed and instantly snuffed-out trial.… In the ghetto and in the world outside the ghetto, the question still cries for answer: Was there a conspiracy to kill Dr. King and who was in it?”
Within hours of leaving the courthouse, Ray told one of the guards transferring him back to prison that he was sorry he had pleaded guilty. He was innocent, but Foreman had strong-armed him into accepting the plea.*41 For the next three days, he worked on drafting a letter to Judge Battle. He sent it on March 13, and in it he stated that Foreman no longer represented him and asked for “a post conviction hearing in the very near future.” On March 26, Ray sent off another letter to Battle officially asking for “a reversal of the 99-year sentence” and the appointment of a public defender. Battle received the second letter when he returned from a brief vacation on March 31. At 5:00 P.M., James Beasley, the assistant district attorney general, walked by the door, saw a light on, and knocked. When there was no answer, he pushed the door open and found Battle dead of a heart attack, slumped over Ray’s latest letter. A few days later, J. B. Stoner, the racist mouthpiece for the National States Rights Party, got his longtime wish and became Ray’s attorney of record.
Since his first letter to Judge Battle within seventy-two hours of his guilty plea, Ray has never stopped proclaiming his innocence and asserting that the elusive Raoul was the key to unlocking what really happened in the assassination. Ray’s immediate repudiation of his guilty plea started speculation that the plea was part of an elaborate plot to silence Ray and protect his coconspirators. He has done nothing to quell that speculation. Rather, he has used a succession of attorneys to pursue every conceivable opportunity to win a new trial. Among many actions, he brought a federal habeas corpus proceeding in the mid-1970s that many thought would lead to a trial but ultimately did not; appeared before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s; and even as late as 1997 had new life infused into his effort when the family of Martin Luther King met with Ray, endorsed his innocence, and joined with those calling for a trial.
Also, by 1997, with Ray’s health failing from cirrhosis of the liver, the defense team’s investigators were certain they had made a major breakthrough by finally tracking down a man they believed was Raoul, supposedly living in upstate New York. This came not long after another apparent break when Loyd Jowers, the owner of Jim’s Grill, which had been located on the ground floor of the Memphis rooming house from which the shot was fired, admitted that he was involved in the plot to kill King, but that he would not disclose the details unless he was granted immunity. These developments forced the district attorney general in Memphis to open up its old files and conduct a new inquiry into whether more than one person was behind King’s murder.
Thirty years after the assassination, the question of who killed Martin Luther King remains unsettled for many people. Finding the answers seemed impossible when prosecutors accepted a 1969 guilty plea rather than demand a trial. Instead of resolving the uneasiness over the case, the guilty plea actually seemed the ultimate cover-up, as though someone had the power to force Ray, through money or fear, to remain silent.
Much of the information that would have surfaced in a trial—Ray’s background, his past crimes, his prison escape, his year as a fugitive leading up to the murder, the actual assassination, his story of Raoul, his escape to Europe—is examined in the coming pages. Ray clearly knows precisely what happened in Memphis in April 1968, but he has persistently failed to reveal the truth. But by investigating Ray’s life, those with whom he associated, what motivated him, and how he came to cross paths with Dr. King in Memphis in April 1968, it is possible to discover what most likely happened in the assassination, even though Ray refuses to disclose it.
* Ray himself added to that perception. In Cell Block A, he developed a talkative relationship with Dr. McCarthy DeMere, an energetic man who had been General George Patton’s medical aide during World War II. Once DeMere asked Ray, “Did you really do it?” “Well, let’s put it this way: I wasn’t in it by myself.” John Ray, James’s brother, reported to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that James had told him the same thing before he pleaded guilty.
* A panel of seven Memphis lawyers had been appointed to advise Judge Battle on questions of pretrial publicity. Arthur Hanes, Sr., two Memphis newspaper reporters, and a private investigator had already been held in contempt of court for giving interviews or, in the case of the journalists, writing stories that contained interviews banned under the pretrial order. After the publication of the Look article, the panel recommended that Huie be held in contempt, as well as FBI fingerprint expert George Bonebrake, who had given a lecture at a police school, attended by some reporters, in which he discussed the prints found on the rifle at the murder scene.
† Jerry Ray had contacted Foreman and asked him to visit James in jail. Foreman later told CBS’s Dan Rather that James himself had written a letter asking for his help. But Foreman could never produce a copy of such a letter, and Ray always denied writing it.
* Renfro Hays, the chief investigator for the Haneses, later filed suit claiming he was entitled to the car and rifle, but it was dismissed. Hays, one of the most colorful characters in Memphis during the late 1960s, was a private investigator who had a reputation for doing anything for his clients, even concocting evidence. He was single-handedly responsible for much of the early false information about the case that is still in circulation. See Chapter 28 for further discussion.
† In sworn testimony in a lawsuit brought against him by Ray, Foreman said he never met Huie until late January 1969. But that is clearly wrong, as Huie places the meeting on November 27, 1968, and made contemporaneous notes about it.
* Stanton was also assigned to represent Charles Stephens, the state’s chief witness against Ray, when the prosecutor tried to put Stephens in protective custody, fearful he might leave town. Years later, Ray unsuccessfully tried to obtain a new trial by contending that Judge Battle committed reversible error by appointing Stanton to represent two clients, in the same case, with potentially different interests.
† Before the trial, Foreman told a Memphis newspaper that he would be his own investigator and he would not have any assistants, as do many other lawyers.
‡ When asked about his questionable deal with Ray, Foreman claimed he took the assignment of all of Ray’s interest in the literary agreement because he was trying to protect Ray in case Mrs. King sued in a civil suit. The House Select Committee on Assassinations examined Foreman’s contention, and rejected it. The contracts involved an unconditional transfer of Ray’s interest, with no provision for a return of the money in case no civil suit was filed, or if it was filed and Ray prevailed.
* Not only did Foreman come to an early and unshakable conclusion that Ray was guilty, but at least part of his conclusion was evidently based on incorrect information. For instance, Foreman later wrote in Look (April 1969) that Ray had left behind fingerprints and a palmprint in the bathroom of the rooming house because “he wanted to escape, but he didn’t want to lose credit.” Foreman later claimed that Ray told him that he left his fingerprints on the rifle because “he wanted the boys back at Jefferson City [Missouri State Penitentiary] to know that he had done it.” Ray adamantly denies telling Foreman that, and it is unlikely that he would ever have made such an admission to Foreman, who did little to inspire any real trust in the four months he represented Ray.
* It should have been clear to seasoned courtroom reporters in Tennessee that the hearing was to accept a guilty plea since a jury was in place on the right side of the court. The trial was not due to start for another several weeks, and there had been no jury selection. However, under Tennessee’s unusual criminal procedure rules, if a guilty plea is offered in a murder case, the first twelve people that qualify from the jury roll are impaneled to listen to summaries from the prosecution and defense, and then to rubber-stamp the plea and the agreed-upon sentence.
* The prosecutors, before accepting the plea, had asked for the approval of Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Tennessee governor Buford Ellington, and Coretta Scott King and her family. Any of the three could have vetoed the plea, but all accepted it. The prosecutors who worked out the plea agreement, however, were not fully convinced that Ray had acted alone. James Beasley told the author, “By the time of the plea, I knew Ray was the triggerman and did all he had to to kill King. Whether someone had paid him $25,000 to do it, I didn’t know. But it didn’t make any difference as to whether Ray was the killer for the charge we had.” Judge Battle, before his death, also expressed doubts that Ray had acted alone, but said he concurred in the plea agreement because “I was convinced then and am convinced now that the trial would have muddied our understanding of the substantial evidence which established Ray as the killer.” Maybe Battle should have been more aggressive in acting on his doubts. In Los Angeles, in the trial of Sirhan Sirhan, the defense and prosecution were close to a plea arrangement similar to that in the Ray case. There, however, Judge Herbert Walker stopped it and forced a trial.
* Ray also later claimed that his harsh prison conditions had worn him down and were a contributing factor in his decision to plead guilty. However, Dr. McCarthy De-Mere, who was Ray’s physician while in jail in Memphis, reported that Ray seemed to thrive in his solitary jail wing. Not only did his health remain excellent, but he gained weight while there and slept well after adjusting to the constant brightness. Ray’s only ailments were occasional nosebleeds and headaches, which were treated with aspirin. DeMere likened Ray’s prison surroundings to a good motel suite.