Joe Hester had been made to look like either a liar or a fool, and he was still close to that office and to the former agents who had gone to work there. One way or another Jim Smith feared that they were going to get him—by setting him up in some way.
When I raised the issue of Smith’s ongoing harassment with Jack Saltman, he was livid. He promised Smith that if it continued he would himself go and call a press conference in Memphis to blast the FBI. I mentioned Smith’s concern that Hickman Ewing might have played a role. Jack took it up with Ewing, who said that the attorney general’s office was indeed furious with Smith but that he had advised them that it would only look worse if they attempted to harass or penalize him in any way.
More than once after the program aired Jim Smith was called over to the FBI office and was actually grilled on his testimony as though the FBI was trying to learn what else he might know. He said they were acting as though he might have gone through their files and uncovered other information that could have been damaging to the bureau. He was told that if he didn’t cooperate he’d never get his security clearance renewed.
ON SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 1993, two weeks before the trial was aired, the Memphis Commercial Appeal published the results of an eighteen-month investigation on the activities of army intelligence related to the civil rights movement. The article by Steve Tompkins concluded that army intelligence, which had a close working relationship with the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover (who was himself made an officer), had kept Dr. King under electronic surveillance while he was in Memphis and elsewhere, even up to the day of his assassination. Walter Fauntroy had told me in preparation for his testimony that he had obtained copies of army intelligence reports that went straight to Hoover’s desk each morning. The Commercial Appeal article noted that the close working relationship between the army and the FBI often meant that the army, with its far greater manpower, conducted these types of surveillance operations for Hoover, all over the country. Agents were for all practical purposes made available for Hoover’s use.
In addition, the piece reported that army intelligence despatched Green Beret teams to thirty-nine racially explosive U.S. cities, including Memphis, with instructions to make detailed maps, identify landing zones for riot troops, and scout sniper sites.
Jim Smith’s testimony concerning his association with such a surveillance team operating on March 18 against Dr. King at the Rivermont Hotel, and the map-drawing agent Coop, was confirmed. He was personally vindicated. Martin Luther King was, without doubt, under electronic surveillance while in Memphis, and the collaborators were the MPD (which employed Smith at the time), the FBI (which received the surveillance tapes and transcripts), and U.S. army intelligence.
THE PROGRAM WAS SCHEDULED FOR SUNDAY EVENING, April 4, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dr. King’s death. The plan was for James, Hickman Ewing, and me to sit in the parole board’s conference room at the prison for a special viewing before television cameras set up to record the first reactions to the verdict. Afterward Sheena MacDonald of Channel 4 in England would interview each of us, and this was to be transmitted by satellite to the U.K. viewing audience.
I was running slightly late on Sunday morning, and when I arrived at the prison, a little after nine, the screening had already begun. Except for minor breaks, the program was uninterrupted for nearly three hours. By the time the jury went out, the viewing room had filled up. Even warden Mike Dutton had come in. The jury returned to the courtroom, announcing that they had reached a verdict. The court clerk collected the verdict and passed it to the judge who read aloud: “The Jury finds the Defendant Not Guilty.”
There was a moment of silence and then James grinned. I smacked him on the back. Ewing’s head just dropped. His chin lay buried in his chest for some time.
MacDonald moved quickly to ask the usual questions. I spoke about presenting an application for exoneration to the governor. James, somewhat at cross-purposes, said that perhaps he could now have a real trial. I stressed that the state had put forward its best case.
Ewing, now recovered, admitted that the program was well done and was good as far as it went. Then he began to backtrack with excuses. Any trial so long after the fact hurts the prosecution. He had no subpoena power. Eventually, in another forum, he stated that “at least” one defense witness “flat-out lied.”
He stated that if the governor ever granted our proposed application, then he should be “impeached.” Later in the interview, although throughout the trial he had vehemently opposed the idea that a conspiracy existed, he (apparently obliquely referring to the recent Commercial Appeal army intelligence article) now stated that it was quite possible that there was a conspiracy but that James was definitely involved. Incredibly, he went on to say that James may have been helped or hired by the Klan or the U.S. army to do the job.
Not unexpectedly, the verdict wasn’t covered as a news event. It was virtually ignored by the media, with the exception of the NBC Today Show. In the days before the verdict was announced the phones were ringing off the hook with media inquiries, but when the verdict was made public the silence was deafening.
At the first opportunity I began to prepare the application to the governor for exoneration, and on Thursday, May 6, 1993, at 10:00 a.m., I entered the offices of Governor Ned McWerter’s counsel, David Wells. I explained that we wished the governor quietly and seriously consider to the information that I was going to leave with Wells, and to do so with an open mind. I informed him that the investigation for the trial had produced a considerable body of new evidence but that there seemed no possibility, in our view, that the courts could reconsider the King case with the degree of objectivity required.
Counsel Wells assured me that he would place the issues before the governor. He said he would himself have to read the documents, and since I was filing an application and exhibits totaling nearly seven hundred pages, this would take him some time. He indicated that other work would make it impossible for him to begin for the next two weeks.
After the meeting, I returned to the hotel to meet Jim Lawson and the Rev. Will Avery, who were to participate in a press conference about the application at 3:00 that afternoon.
The governor had made a statement about two hours earlier that appeared to be deliberately timed to undercut our efforts. When asked by the press about the application, he responded that James Earl Ray was in prison when he entered the governor’s office and James would still be inside when he left. I was forced to dismiss the statement as an impromptu remark not worthy of his office or the trust and responsibilities it conveyed. I had to disclose that counsel Wells had assured me that no matter what the governor said publicly the issues raised by the application would be brought to his attention.
The story was confined to the local area. Associated Press staff were present, but the details of the application weren’t picked up. The networks ran none of the local footage. The news of the application to the governor was barely out there.
I decided to submit a petition to Amnesty International to take up the case. I had done so on two other occasions only to be refused. James was not, Amnesty had decided, a true “prisoner of conscience”—imprisoned or kept in prison because of his political beliefs. Now, after speaking with Dina Coloma, a researcher in the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, I thought that we might have a chance.
Coloma had seen the trial and admitted that as it had proceeded she had tried herself to conceive how the defendant might fit the Amnesty criteria. For Amnesty to consider intervening, it would be necessary for me to submit a formal petition establishing that James was a political pawn. I did so. The petition set out the basic political issues that have long been a part of the case. It raised a serious question about the occurrence and perpetuation of a miscarriage of justice as a result of governmental intervention. It detailed the tampering with some items of evidence and the suppression of other evidence.
Subsequently Coloma asked me if I would be willing to prepare a further
submission on the issue of the guilty plea and set out in detail precisely how that came about. If it was clear that James had been railroaded into entering the plea, that was an issue which Amnesty could seize upon. I asked her if I might not also submit a note on the extradition issue, since James had been extradited largely, if not entirely, on the basis of the fraudulent and false affidavit of Charlie Q. Stephens. I briefed both issues, delivered the further submissions on June 25, and waited.
On July 14, Amnesty’s head of research, Martin Smart, wrote saying that limited resources made it impossible for Amnesty in the short term to dedicate the staff necessary to examine and verify the allegations contained in the application.
DESPITE THE LACK OF NEWS COVERAGE, I considered the trial a success. Its preparation had provided a foundation for the opening up of the case as had never before been possible.
PART V
The Continuing Investigation
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Loyd Jowers’s Involvement: August–December, 1993
IN THE TRIAL’S AFTERMATH I had begun to focus on Loyd Jowers. I wanted to find a way to put the evidence that we had uncovered about his involvement on the record. In addition we needed to learn as much as possible about what he knew in order to get to the bottom of the conspiracy in Memphis. Though we already had enough evidence to establish James’s innocence, the closer we could get to solving the crime, the better our chances of securing freedom for James.
Wayne Chastain knew Jowers’s lawyer, Lewis Garrison, and frequently Garrison would discuss the case with him. Garrison told him that his client had dropped hints that he knew much more about the events of April 4 than anyone else. Garrison said that he seemed to be looking for a way to open up.
Ken Herman told me that on his own initiative he had gone to see Garrison and had a discussion with him about the alleged involvement of his client in the killing. He said Garrison somehow had learned about what we knew (I didn’t understand how this could be so but I was later to find out). Garrison told him that he had advised Jowers and Willie Akins (who was also a client of his) not to say anything until a grant of immunity was obtained. He had undertaken to his clients to approach the Tennessee attorney general John Pierotti with such a request. John Billings asked his next door neighbor—black judge and founder of the National Civil Rights Museum, D’Army Bailey—to quietly ask the attorney general to review the request for immunity, which would shortly be submitted.
I was annoyed that Herman and Billings had taken all of these actions on their own, without instructions. They had both worked for me through the end of the trial. After April 4, 1993 not only did I not have funds to continue to use their services but as a result of the budgetary shortfall previous monies were owed to them and others. Herman and Billings had, however, a continuing legal and ethical responsibility to James which derived from their association with his defense and myself as his lawyer. Not only had they indirectly tipped-off Jowers and Akins to what we knew, but it was quite possible they had put essential witnesses, already fearful, at risk. If Betty and Bobbi knew that Jowers and Akins had become aware of their cooperation with us, we had little chance of convincing them to cooperate further.
Though I did not learn about this until October 4, sometime in May 1993 Garrison decided to include James McCraw, Bobbi Smith, and Betty Spates in the request for immunity. It was not clear to me how or even whether he had been authorized to act on behalf of Smith and Spates, but I knew that he had represented the three men on personal injury cases. I also didn’t see how any of the people other than Jowers could be charged with any crime, since the statute of limitations had run out on any criminal charges stemming from acts committed after the crime.
I didn’t expect attorney general Pierotti to approve the request for immunity, since he and his office had long been closely associated with the official “solution” of the case. Pierotti was a young prosecutor in the office in 1968 when Phil Canale was the attorney general. I was advised by Jim Smith that during the pretrial period Canale kept in touch with developments.
My early contacts with attorney general Pierotti were concerned with gaining access to the evidence for the TV trial, and he appeared to be most reasonable. Eventually, however, he opposed any testing of evidence whatsoever, and would only let us examine it in the Clerk of Court’s office where it was stored. I also learned after the trial that his office had unofficially assigned a staffer to assist Hickman Ewing with his prosecution.
Jim Smith also told me that over the years a number of former FBI men had come to work for the office and this group was very protective of the status quo. In fact, it was the ex-FBI cabal and others who made life miserable for Smith after the trial, and caused the renewal of his security clearance to be denied. (By late May 1993 he was getting such hostility from his colleagues that he feared that he might be set up and his career finished. He had seen it happen to others. He therefore provided notice of his intention to leave after the new year and began to job hunt.)
I had no involvement in Garrison’s request, but was anxious for the truth to come out, and hoped that all of the possibilities would be fully explored. It was obvious that Jowers would not reveal what he knew unless some sort of satisfactory immunity or plea arrangement could be obtained. There were any number of plea-bargaining possibilities open to the prosecutor and Garrison.
I discovered an alternative route for obtaining immunity. A little-known Tennessee statute provides that:
40-12-106. Prosecution of persons applying to testify not barred—Express immunity.—Notwithstanding any contrary provision of law, no person applying to testify before the grand jury shall be immune from prosecution based upon testimony subsequently given pursuant to such application, except under express grant of immunity by the grand jury. (emphasis added)
This allowed us to sidestep the attorney general’s office and approach the grand jury directly and ask that body to hear evidence on the case. Ken Herman said he mentioned my suggestion to Garrison, but the lawyer insisted on going the conventional route. Herman said that he and Garrison both believed that the story was too big for Pierotti to suppress.
Garrison met with Pierotti at 3:00 p.m. on June 3 and laid out the request, stating that his unnamed clients wished to provide specific evidence pertaining to the killing of Martin Luther King in exchange for a grant of immunity from the state and federal governments. Pierotti asked Garrison for a brief statement outlining the evidence. Herman said Garrison quoted the attorney general as having said that once Garrison provided this there would be no problem issuing the grant. Garrison submitted the formal written request on June 22, 1993.
Meanwhile bits and pieces of Jowers’s and Akins’s story began to be passed on to me (usually now through Wayne Chastain, to whom Herman and gradually Lewis Garrison would talk). The allegation surfaced that Jowers had hired Frank Holt, a black produce-truck unloader, to do the shooting. (This report brought instantly to mind Coy Love’s story about seeing a black man throw a hooded sweatshirt into a dumpster behind the Tayloe Paper Company.) Holt worked at the time for M. E. Carter Produce Company, which was located on Front Street (which ran parallel to South Main and was the next block east). We had come across Holt’s name in an FBI 302 report, which stated that he had been in front of Jim’s Grill immediately after the shooting and was told by the police to go inside the grill and stay out of the way. I had asked Ken Herman to look for Holt as a possible witness in our pretrial investigation but Herman couldn’t locate him. According to Herman, Jowers told Garrison that Frank Liberto (the produce man) had given him the contract to murder King, thus apparently independently confirming John McFerren’s story.
Jowers apparently acknowledged having seen James in the grill on April 4 seated at a table with a dark-haired Latino. This was almost exactly as James had described his meeting with Raul on the afternoon of the killing. Jowers also indicated that the money for the contract came from New Orleans and was delivered to Memphis in an M. E. Carter Produce Company
truck carrying produce from that city. Herman also reported that Jowers had confirmed Betty’s story about the events of April 4 leading up to the shooting.
There was no indication where and with whom the contract originated and it was quite possible that the information Jowers knew extended only to the local details of the actual killing. In any case, Jowers was insisting that he wouldn’t reveal all he knew until he was granted immunity.
It transpired that Akins did not know Jowers at the time of the killing, but only became involved with him about a year later.
IN LATE JULY, I widened the focus of my investigation. I met with Steve Tompkins, the former Commercial Appeal investigative reporter, whose front-page piece on the active role of army intelligence since the end of World War I in surveilling and infiltrating black organizations and civil rights groups had been published on March 21, 1993.
Army intelligence had spied on Dr. King’s family for three generations. The article noted that there was an extraordinary fear in official circles of what would happen if Dr. King was allowed to lead masses of American poor into Washington that spring. It stated that army intelligence was “… desperately searching for a way to stop him….”
Orders to Kill Page 32