Panelists swap conspiracy theories on MLK assassination

WASHINGTON - The judge who presided over appeals by Martin Luther King Junior&#39;s confessed killer is enjoying a successful new television career, but that hasn&#39;t stalled his quest to prove James Earl Ray was merely a pawn in a huge conspiracy. <br> <br> Joe Brown, the former Tennessee judge and star of the nationally syndicated ``Judge Joe Brown,&#39;&#39; stole the show Friday at a panel discussion of conspiracy theorists who believe Ray had little -- if anything -- to do with the civil rights leader&#39;s death. <br> <br> Ray confessed to the April 4, 1968, assassination of King but recanted soon after. Later, the King family became convinced of Ray&#39;s innocence and helped him try unsuccessfully to win a new trial before he died in prison 30 years after the murder. <br> <br> A Tennessee Appeals Court removed Brown from the Ray case in 1998 after the district attorney argued he was no longer impartial. Even that move sparked a conspiracy theory from William Pepper, one of Ray&#39;s appellate lawyers and a panelist in the discussion, which was part of the Congressional Black Caucus&#39; annual legislative conference. <br> <br> Brown insists the fatal shot could not have come from the Remington Gamemaster .30-06 hunting rifle that Ray said he owned and investigators claim was the murder weapon. Several ballistics test have been inconclusive, but Brown -- an avid hunter -- says it came from a different sort of gun altogether. <br> <br> He says it wasn&#39;t a rifle bullet, but a pistol bullet. <br> <br> Representative Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia Democrat who moderated the panel, contends King was the victim of a wide government conspiracy. <br> <br> Other panelists suggested U.S. Army intelligence officials were involved and that there might have been a link between the murders of King and John F. Kennedy.