In the matter of the People v. James Earl Ray, the plea of guilty to murder in the first degree might have seemed an opportunity for the state of Tennessee to close forever its voluminous dossier on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ray admitted that he was the rifleman who had felled King in Memphis with a single soft-nosed .30-'06-caliber bullet. Yet by allowing him to plead guilty and accept a prearranged sentence of 99 years, the prosecution closed the case without a trial. How ever convenient that settlement may have been to both sides, it immediately...
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