Has there ever been something like a definitive investigation into the conspiracy charges surrounding the death of Martin Luther King, Jr? I've read that the trail in question was mostly for show, and that the defense hardly put up a struggle, essentially making the verdict a foregone conclusion (and hence of little factual value). But has there ever been a serious, systematic refutation of the claims made by the King family? Do serious scholars on the subject take these claims seriously and merely find the available information too inconclusive to get behind such a serious charge, or is there reason to doubt them?
EDIT: For the record, here's attorney and King associate William Pepper giving a lecture on the subject. Pepper was the attorney for the civil trial. I guess it's summarized in his books Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King Jr (1995) and An Act Of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (2003)
The results of the Justice Department internal investigation can be found here
The US Justice Department obviously did not agree, for reasons listed there.
This is some more information on the Justice Department conclusions.
The trial transcript can be found here.
I'm not an expert: I haven't read these things very deeply, and don't presume to know what historical opinion is on it. I just figure this is a good place for laymen to begin reading so they can see what historians might also be working with.
Hopefully that's alright!
Edit: Some more context: The Justice Department argues that the MLK trial of MLK vs. Jower didn't look at all the evidence they did. The Justice Department also concludes that the trial used mostly second and third-hand testimony, which would be hearsay evidence.
If you look at the testimony itself, you can see why. When things like this from one of Ray's former attorneys are allowed in court:
Q. Okay. So he said he was contacted – this inmate, William Kirk, said he was contacted by Mr. Baldwin?
A. Well, he had met him, and then Mr. Baldwin was apparently serving a sentence for some kind of non-violent crime like income tax evasion or he didn't know really what it was, but he said Baldwin had already talked to – and I don't know how he knew this – to Mr. Kirk's codefendants. And these also were names that were known to Memphians or to me anyway – Albert Tiller and George Tiller. I think they were called the terrible Tiller brothers by a lot of people.
And apparently Mr. Baldwin had offered them $2,500 to do a job stopping somebody from attending a board meeting.
Then the job was offered to Mr. Kirk, and Mr. Kirk didn't say whether he took that job or not. But he did say he and Mr. Baldwin were friends, that he had saved him from some sort of unpleasantness in the jail. He also told us that in June 1977 he was released, but then he was arrested two weeks later for a robbery in Germantown. He got out again and he stayed out until November of 1977 where he was arrested in Jackson, Tennessee and brought back to Memphis, was released again in December.
Then he went and started visiting Mr. Baldwin at his place of business when Mr. Baldwin had been released, and then he said he was offered a murder contract by Mr. Baldwin for $5,000, and he was told that there were three more pieces of business in Memphis for larger sums of money. And Kirk told us that he didn't take the murder contract and was back in jail when it was carried out against a person named David Macnamee (spelled phonetically) in Memphis.
And he further related that Baldwin was from the state of Washington and that he had been in the Memphis area since '75 or '76.
Then Kirk had to go back to Missouri on a warrant. Then he came back to Tennessee in March of 1978, and in September of '78, he was sentenced to 65 years on the various cases he was facing in Tennessee. But in June or July of 1978, he had a telephone conversation with Mr. Baldwin during which time Baldwin mentioned another murder contract for $5,000. This time with James Earl Ray as the target, and my recollection is that Mr. Ray was then at Brushy Mountain, but I'm not absolutely sure.
Well, suddenly the court is allowing hearsay. And hearsay is not supposed to be acceptable in court, as far as I know.
Not only that, it's unverifiable, which is part of the reason for it being unacceptable in court. Neither Baldwin or Kirk could testify to substantiate the claim.
So the trial suffered from problems here, and from other witnesses. That's why the Justice Department lists it as a problem. The Department also lists a problem of witnesses with contradictory eyewitness accounts, and concludes that the trial lacked all evidence it presents (including key witnesses), and is based more on hearsay and incomplete analysis than anything else.
Please read the response below mine about burden of proof to understand more on why this is so significant!
If you don't get an answer or get deleted just be aware that this post does violate the current events rule. And although I'd like to see it answered, I won't be surprised to see it deleted.
Follow up question: what was the government's alleged motivation for wanting King assassinated?
I was under the impression that it was settled fact that J. Edgar disliked MLK and was pulling all sorts of dirty tricks?