William F. Pepper

Pepper has stated Martin Luther King Jr. contacted Pepper after seeing his photo essay, The Children of Vietnam, which was published in the January 1967 issue of Ramparts magazine. It depicted victims of napalm in Vietnam.[7] Pepper, who supported the communist cause later wrote "it was not then clear to Dr. King that Ho-Chi Minh’s reverence for Jefferson, Lincoln, and American democracy, as he idealized it, made him the legitimate father of a unified Vietnam" [8] Pepper later stated that the contact contributed to King's more adamant position against the Vietnam War. Pepper has said he was present at King's April 4, 1967 Riverside Church speech in which King launched a strong campaign against the war.

James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to King's assassination but soon recanted his confession. Pepper, who was Ray's last attorney, has postulated that Ray was not the shooter but was framed by the FBI, the CIA, the military, the Memphis police, and organized crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis.

Pepper represented James Earl Ray in a televised mock trial where Ray was found not guilty. Pepper's appeals to higher courts, and even the Supreme Court, failed. According to Pepper, "It looked like we were at the end of the road and then I came up with an idea, 'Well, look, why don't we try to have a real trial on television?" A mock trial was broadcast on HBO. The television jury found Ray not guilty.[9]

King's youngest son, Dexter King, met with Ray on March 27, 1997, at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility. King subsequently said, "In the name of truth and justice, our family is calling for a trial, a trial James Earl Ray never had. ... I don't think his trial—if he is granted a trial—will necessarily give us the unequivocal proof, but at least in regard to new evidence, we will know more than we do now." [10]

In June 1997, Pepper appeared on ABC's Turning Point. He discussed the theory from his book Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King Jr. This theory that held that a hit team from the 20th special forces group was to kill King if a police sharpshooter failed. This group was supposedly led by a man named Billy Eidson, whom Pepper claimed had since been killed in a cover up. Eidson was then brought on camera and refused to shake Pepper's hand. Eidson brought a $15 million dollar lawsuit against Pepper's publisher which was later settled for a undisclosed amount.[11][12]

Following Ray's death, Pepper represented the King family in a wrongful death lawsuit, "King family vs. Loyd Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators". During a trial that lasted four weeks, Pepper produced over seventy witnesses. Jowers, testifying by deposition, stated that James Earl Ray was a scapegoat and not involved in the assassination. Jowers testified that Memphis police officer Earl Clark fired the fatal shots. On December 8, 1999, the Memphis jury found Jowers responsible, and also found that the assassination plot included "governmental agencies." The jury took less than an hour to find in favor of the King family for the requested sum of $100.[13]

On February 22, 2012, Pepper and co-counsel Laurie Dusek filed a court brief in District Court in Los Angeles claiming that a second gunman fired the shots that killed Robert F. Kennedy, and petitioning for the release of their client Sirhan Sirhan.[14] Pepper believes that Sirhan, who claims to have no memory of the shooting was programmed under hypnosis to shoot and provide a distraction from the actual gunman who got away. Hypnosis expert Harvard Medical School professor Daniel P. Brown concluded that Sirhan did not act under his own volition and knowledge at the time of the shooting. He was a real "Manchurian Candidate".[15] ABC News said the story had all the makings of a great conspiracy theory.[16]

Sirhan Sirhan was again denied parole on February 10, 2016. On March 30, 2016, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a further appeal launched by Pepper, noting the appellant has not shown that "jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling."[17]