This case overlooked so much contradictory evidence that never was presented, what other option did the jury have but to accept version?”Īnd Gerald Posner, whose recent book, “Killing the Dream” made the case that Mr. Ray, said, “I’m not surprised by the verdict. John Campbell, an assistant district attorney in Memphis, who was not part of the civil proceedings but was part of the criminal case against Mr. Nonetheless, some thirty years later, King’s family brought a wrongful death lawsuit seeking $100 in damages from someone else - a Memphis restaurant owner named Loyd Jowers who, 25 years after the fact, inconsistently claimed he had been paid to hire a hit man to kill King, and then repudiated his claims when required to testify to them under oath.Īs we note in our detailed article on the subject, after a rather farcical, one-sided trial that allowed for no other result, the jury returned a verdict in favor of King’s family, holding that Loyd Jowers had participated in a conspiracy to kill King, declaring that “governmental agencies” were party to that conspiracy, and awarding plaintiffs $100 in damages: On March 10, 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tennessee, to assassinating King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison (and died in 1998 while serving out his sentence). The picture was taken in 1958 (ten years before King was shot and killed by assassin James Earl Ray in Memphis) and captures King recuperating after he was stabbed during a book signing at a Harlem department store and doctors had to remove a seven-inch letter opener from his chest. Nearly everything about this post is wrong or misleading, however.įirst off, the referenced photograph does not show King recovering in a hospital bed from any type of shooting incident.

According to the post, King was not actually killed during an April 4, 1968, assassination attempt, but rather survived that shooting and was later “smothered by someone in the hospital.” King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, later “sued the state & WON!” and “in 1999 the U.S gov was found guilty in the court of law for conspiring to kill him”: in a hospital bed, with the claim that the picture was taken after he was shot. A much-circulated Facebook post displays a photograph of civil rights leader Dr.

Kill shot king photos