The Ray Case: Request for a Reprise

What are cannons, or bombs, or clash ing of swords?

For death is more certain by witnesses' words.

—John Gay (1685-1732) The answer that Gay advocated in The Beggar's Opera was to nail witnesses' lips together so that they could not testify. That advice was not lost on the formidable Percy Foreman when he set out to defend the assassin of Mar tin Luther King Jr. Foreman's way of doing that — to avoid having to argue be fore a jury against the damaging ev idence marshaled against James Earl Ray — was to...

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