Ghosts of Memphis

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MEMPHIS: New technology may be able to determine whether James Earl Ray's rifle killed Martin Luther King Jr. If the Tennessee Court of Appeals agrees, a local judges order for new, more sophisticated ballistics tests may help reopen the investigation into the murder, and possibly bring the case before a jury. Because James Earl Ray confessed to the killing, he was never put on trial, not even when he recanted three days after his arrest and said that a shadowy band of conspirators associated with a man known as Raoul had orchestrated the assassination. While Ray's fingerprints were found on a gun left not far from the scene of the shooting, defense lawyer William Pepper argued that an analysis by sophisticated modern electron microscopes could show that the bullet which killed King does not match ammunition left in the 30.06 Remington rifle. Earlier tests were inconclusive, leaving investigators to rely on Ray's confession. Questions about the FBI's assertion that Ray acted alone surrounded the case from the beginning, including criticisms that the government conducted a sloppy, incomplete investigation. Critics have also wondered about the FBI theory that Ray, a small-time, incompetent crook could have singlehandedly evaded a police dragnet and left the country before finally being caught in London. While Ray, who lies close to death from liver disease in a Tennessee prison hospital, did not attend Thursday's hearing in the Shelby County Criminal Court, members of King's family who hope for a trial sat prominently in front row seats. After seven failed motions for a Ray trial, favorable results from a new test could provide enough evidence to try a case that many thought never should have been closed.