James Earl Ray was convicted in 1969 of murdering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Ray later recanted his guilty plea. In 1999 a Memphis civil jury in King v. Jowers found, by a preponderance of evidence, that a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers and unnamed government agencies contributed to King's death. The King family supported that verdict. The FBI's COINTELPRO program had surveilled and harassed King extensively. The criminal conviction of Ray stands; the conspiracy question remains genuinely open.