On March 10, 1969, James Earl Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.. Ray died in 1998, still seeking a retrial of his case.



On December 9th, 1999, a Memphis jury handed down a verdict agreeing with the King family that the 1968 assassination of the civil rights leader was a conspiracy rather than the act of a lone gunman. Learn more about the trial and the assassination from The King Center in Atlanta.