Section A · Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Friday, April 24, 1998
King's assassin, 70, dies but controversy lives on
The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — James Earl Ray, the petty criminal who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then recanted, died yesterday, frustrating civil rights leaders who fear they may never learn the truth. He was 70.
Ray died at a hospital of kidney failure and complications from liver disease while serving a 99-year prison sentence for the 1968 slaying.
"America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination." said King's widow, Coretta.
Coretta King and her son, Dexter, have said they believe Ray was innocent.
The King family is pressing Attorney General Janet Reno to create a federal investigative commission with the power to subpoena witnesses, grant immunity and file charges against suspected conspirators.
But as far as Ray and the courts are concerned, it's finished. Prosecutors in Memphis, Tenn., where King was shot on a motel balcony, said Ray's 30-year battle to take back his guilty plea died with him.
A sniper shot King 30 years ago this month at the Lorraine Motel. He was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. The April 4, 1968, assassination touched off race riots in more than 100 cities and set off one of the biggest manhunts in U.S. history.
By pleading guilty in March 1969, he avoided the possibility of a death sentence. But Ray recanted three days later and argued for years that he was coerced into making the plea.
Ray's efforts resulted in an unlikely coalition between his family and King's.
"I am convinced that Ray was involved in the assassination of Dr. King, but he did not act alone," said Jackson, who was with King when he was shot. "Conspirators are still on the loose."
In 1978, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded Ray was the killer, but a group of racial bigots in St. Louis who reportedly had put a $50,000 bounty on King's head might have been involved, too.
Ray's last legal effort concentrated on the rifle prosecutors say was the murder weapon. Ray had purchased the rifle which was found near the murder scene moments after King was shot with Ray's
fingerprints on it. Ray claimed it was
nut there to frame him.
Ballistics tests by the FBI and a congressional committee in the 1970s failed to prove the rifle was the murder weapon, though King was killed with a similar gun. Tests undertaken in 1997 proved inconclusive, too. At his death, Ray was pressing for still more tests.
Justice Department spokesman Myron Martin said the department's review of the King assassination based on information submitted by Coretta King will continue despite Ray's death.
Courtroom artist Anna Sandhu, who was married to Ray from 1978 to 1992, said she first believed he was innocent but later discovered otherwise. She called their marriage a terrible mistake.
"James is probably right now some place where the devil is poking him in the butt with a pincorkf saying. 'You have to stand closer to the fire,' she said.
Ray had been hospitalized repeatedly, since late 1996 and had been in and out of coma, suffering most notably from cirrhosis of the liver.
His body will be cremated and his ashes flown to Ireland, his brother said.
McDougal still keeps quiet
Defendant waits to see if criminal charges follow
The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A defiant Susan McDougal refused yesterday to answer questions before the Whitewater grand jury for the second time, ignoring prosecutors' threats that her silence could mean more time behind bars.
"I won't talk," said McDougall, shackled at the hands and feet, as she hopped out of a van and into federal court. "There is nothing to say."
McDougal finished serving 18 months in prison last month, the maximum punishment for civil contemp. The term was imposed for refusing to answer questions in her first appearance before the grand jury in September 1996.
Yesterday, she again refused to answer questions about what she knows about the financial affairs of President Clinton and his wife.
Prosecutors threatened her with criminal contempt, which carries more severe penalties than the civil charge, but stopped short of indicting her, said her lawyer, Mark Geragos.
"We're playing a game of chicken. Somebody's going to have to blink at some point," Geragos said. "We're at loggerheads."
Prosecutors refused to comment.
On her way back to jail, McDougal said she had tried to explain to the grand jury in her 15-minute appearance why she wouldn't answer questions.
"I told them the same thing I've been saying
... I'm somebody who has been in jail and has really paid a price," she said. "I didn't want them to think I was contemptuous of them."
U. S. District Judge Susan Weber Wright could send McDougal behind bars for another six months without a trial. Prosecutors could seek even more jail time by charging her with criminal contempt. If convicted, her punishment would depend on what the prosecution asks for and what the judge accepts.
It wasn't clear when prosecutors and Geragos would meet next. The grand jury's term expires May 7.
But Geragos said McDougal would welcome a trial, which would give her the opportunity to accuse Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr of trying to get her to lie about the Clintons in open court.
"This is not a woman who's afraid for one minute of a jury trial on criminal contempt," Geraos said.
Members of McDougal's family even predicted that no jury in Arkansas would convict her for refusing to tell what she knows about the president's finances when he was governor.
"Sometimes principle is far more important than the letter of the written law," said her brother, Bill Henley.
Henley called Starr a sham and a liar and said his sister will have nothing to do with him.
The judge on Wednesday rejected a request from Geragos to quash her subpoena because of recent ethical questions concerning Starr.
Parents, daughters win at workday
The Associated Press
Starr's detractors say his key witness, David Hale, received payments from conservative organizations and Starr improperly accepted a job at Pepperdine University that was funded by a well-known Clinton opponent.
NEW YORK — Ernst & Young canned the tours and speeches. At this year's Take Our Daughters to Work Day yesterday, girls filled out loan applications, created ads and ran small businesses.
"We're keeping it fresh for our daughters," said Tom Hough, the accounting firm's vice chairman of human resources.
coming back each year.
Now in its sixth year, Daughters to Work Day is a rite of spring at many workplaces, with millions of girls attending. But employers have discovered that hands-on activities, not just talks and tours, are needed to keep their visitors
Girls at the New York law firm Anderson Kill & Olick helped stage a mock trial to assess liability for the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
"Each year, the next year becomes even more difficult because we go through every effort imaginable to come up with something exciting," law partner Linda Gerstel said as children roamed the firm collecting evidence about the ship and its lifeboat count.
Francie Sloan, the day's lead organizer at Kaiser Permanente health care, said past efforts to interest the visitors in the largely administrative and financial jobs at the company's Oakland, Calif.,
headquarters were futile.
This year, doctors and nurses were brought in from the company's hospitals to help the girls play games about nutrition, learn about resume writing and discuss how the media shapes body image.
At the World Bank in Washington, interest in the annual round of tours and lectures waned so much that the event was skipped one year.
After organizers regrouped and created a mock university and other new events, attendance leaped from 600 girls to 1,100 last year. This year, about 1,800 girls showed up to teleconference with girls worldwide, create their own
Web sites and take classes on such topics as journal-writing and the development work of the bank.
"They may still take tours, but we discourage it," said coordinator Kathryn Tama.
The Ms. Foundation, creator of the day, approves.
"That's the stuff that keeps it fresh, keeps it current," president Marie Wilson said. "Companies have gotten smarter."
"Ireally learned stuff," she said
a twelve-year-old Cheyenne Vieira, a third-year veteran of the day, said she liked this year's hands-on activities at Salomon Smith Barney better than last year's magic show.
Clinton convinced Chelsea he was governor not cook
WASHINGTON D.C. — Long before Take Our Daughters to Work Day was a tradition, President Clinton saw it as a necessity — to set Chelsea straight.
The Associated Press
Reminiscing yesterday at a Rose Garden event dotted by children who accompanied their parents to work at the White House, Clinton said his daughter once had the wrong idea about how dad spent his days.
"When my daughter started preschool and she was asked what
her father did, she said that he works at McDonald's." Clinton said with a chuckle. "And so I decided I had better take her to work with me, even though I realized it would result in a diminution of my status in her eyes."
He was governor of Arkansas at the time.
"We want our daughters to believe, along with our sons, that they can aspire to do whatever it is they want to do, whatever they are willing to do, whatever they are prepared to make the effort to do." Clinton said.
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