ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
MEMPHIS, Tenn.
A JUDGE WANTS NEW TESTS done on the rifle believed used in the slaying of Martin Luther King Jr. They could lead to a trial for the man imprisoned as the assassin.
Modern technology exists that might prove once and for all whether James Earl Ray's rifle killed Martin Luther King Jr., a judge said Thursday in a decision that keeps alive Ray's quest for a trial.
Judge Joe Brown's decision must be reviewed by a state appeals court before he can rule on whether to allow the tests on the rifle and the bullet taken from King's body.
Ray, who pleaded guilty to King's 1968 slaying, reversed himself almost immediately and has been requesting a trial ever since. He asked for the rifle tests in an attempt to take back his guilty plea and go to trial - a move supported by the widow and son of the slain civil rights leader.
``Even if no new light is shed on the facts concerning my husband's assassination, at least we and the nation can have the satisfaction of knowing that justice has run its course in this tragedy,'' Coretta Scott King told the judge.
Added Dexter King: ``If this is such an open-and-shut case, why are we still being asked the question: `Do you believe Mr. Ray killed your father?'''
Ray, who is serving a 99-year prison sentence, is 68 and suffering from serious liver disease, which his lawyers describe as terminal.
King's widow said her family has declined over the years to get involved in efforts to get a trial for Ray but his failing health requires that now.
``If Mr. Ray is denied a trial,'' she said, ``our family and indeed the entire nation will also be denied the due process of law that is the birthright of every citizen.''
Ray contends that his rifle, identified for almost 30 years as the murder weapon, was not the one that killed King.
To rule on Ray's request, Brown had to first decide if technology for such tests is better today than it was in the late 1960s and 1970s when the rifle was last examined.
``All I'm trying to say is there appears to be scientific methodology that has a reasonable likelihood or is capable, let's put it that way, of resolving this issue,'' Brown said.
Brown approved Ray's request for new tests on the rifle in 1994 but was overturned by the appeals court. Because of that, any decisions he makes on Ray's petition must be looked at by the higher court. Brown did not know when the appeals court would review his decision.
Conspiracy theorists have argued for years that Ray, a bungling, petty criminal, could not have pulled off the assassination alone. And their theories, some of which include allegations of government wrongdoing, often note that authorities have never proven that Ray's gun was the murder weapon.
Ray contends the 30-06 Remington rifle found at the murder scene with his fingerprints on it was put there by murder conspirators trying to frame him.
Ray said he bought the rifle in Alabama and brought it to Memphis on instructions from a shadowy gun runner he knew only as Raoul. Authorities have never established Raoul existed.
The FBI and the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations tested the rifle in the 1970s but could not establish beyond a scientific doubt that it was the murder weapon. Their tests showed, however, that King was killed by the same kind of gun.
Robert Hathaway, a firearms specialist from Connecticut, told Brown that a modern piece of equipment called a scanning electron microscope might be able to prove whether Ray's rifle fired the fatal shot.
Two other specialists called by Ray's lawyer gave similar testimony.
But James Cadigan, an FBI agent with the bureau's crime lab, said it is doubtful the tests Ray wants would prove much beyond what investigators already know about the rifle and death slug.
Prosecutor John Campbell said Ray has exhausted his appeals and would still be guilty, as a co-conspirator, even if the fatal shot was fired by someone else.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Coretta Scott King, widow of the slain civil rightsby CNBleader, testified that James Earl Ray should have a trial so justice
can "run its course."