Editorial | Killer of the Dreamer Mark Your Calendar

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(continued from page 8) unethical, but might I assume that you would issue an injunction and stop the execution?” He paused again and softly said, “Yes.”

The lawyers in question believed that Judge Nixon would agree with our contentions if he would tour Unit 6 and see firsthand how incredibly inhumane it truly was. At that time, death row’s “Unit 6” was so horrible that my client was adamantly choosing electrocution over living there any longer. Ray, though not facing electrocution, was also being held on Unit 6. The warden feared that inmates in general population might kill him in order to achieve notoriety, as in revenge, or, in their minds, justice. Judge Nixon agreed. With the U.S. Marshall leading the way, the news media and a gaggle of lawyers in tow, including Dudley West, Larry Woods, Rich McGee, Bill Reddick, Will Campbell, and others, we toured the facility. As we entered Unit 6, Ray’s cell was the first on the left. He kept his back to us from his bunk. I later learned that Ray had told my client, “Don’t trust that damn Hardin. He used to be a prosecutor.”

The incredible, horrible conditions are detailed in Judge Nixon’s ruling, which resulted in Unit 6 being declared unconstitutional and subsequently shut down.5

In the end, Ray never said why he did it, nor did the D.A. or judge ask him about such facts. Ray may have thought that the killing would chill or stop the civil rights movement. Maybe he thought he could get Alabama Governor George Wallace elected president, spark a race war, or finally make himself a hero. Perhaps, in his mind, he would, finally and at last, be a winner.

Like most everyone in the world, I remembered Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountain” speech on April 3, 1968. The speech was the bright precursor to that terrible next day: Dr. King’s murder at the hands of Ray. I remember hearing gunshots being fired in response to Dr. King’s death by angry protestors from my Vanderbilt dorm room. The sound will forever remain etched in my memory. Looking back, I imagine that Ray must have felt for a moment, amidst the chaos that he caused, that he had finally become the “winner” he wanted to be.

Today, countless bridges, parks, and roads are named in Dr. King’s honor. Each January, we honor him with countless events, parades, speeches, prayers, and sermons. Few, if any, have been more honored. Ray slew the Dreamer, but he could not kill his dreams. Just the opposite. Ray’s violent, hatefilled, racist murder of Dr. King immortalized Ray as the loser in his own story. Indeed, he forever solidified Dr. King’s dreams across the world, but at the heart-wrenching expense of a life too soon snuffed out. n

HAL HARDIN is a former NBA Board Member, US Attorney and Presiding Judge of the Nashville trial courts; and, he has received the trifecta of NBA honors - the Tune, Rutherford, and Norman Awards.

Endnotes

1 See e.g. NBA’s oral histories of Tom Shiver.

2 James Earl Ray v. Percy Foreman et al, 441 F.2d 1266 (6th Cir.1971).

3 The 1968 Select Committee on Assassins voiced their belief that the windowsill evidence was “inconclusive”; Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations Of the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., United States Printing Office, Volume 1, 1-686. 1979.

4 Yes, that’s the way we cited statutes then.

5 Groseclose et al v. Warden Dutton et al, 609 F. Supp. 1432 (Mid. Tenn. 1985); Rehearing denied en banc November 3, 1987, Groseclose v. Dutton, 829 F.2d 581 (6th Cir. 1987).