Since it came up in this thread.
The claim is that a jury found that Martin Luther King was murdered by a conspiracy headed by the federal government. This is often brought up with the implication that a full set of facts was presented to a jury that convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt that King was killed by the FBI or other governmental agencies. Information with slants towards both sides are here, here (this one includes a transcript), and here.
What’s the Straight Dope on this?
It was a civil trial, so “beyond a reasonable doubt” as well as “innocent until proven guilty” do not apply here.
The plaintiff just has to make his case by a preponderance of the evidence. And since the government was not a party to the case, they did not have a chance to provide any evidence and, as I said, they are not presumed innocent. So if all the evidence presented blamed the government and no one put on a defense…
It’s kind of like if a stranger tripped and fell on your neighbor’s sidewalk. They had a trial (that no one told you about) and the jury decided you were responsible for the bad condition of your neighbor’s walk.
This is not a case of “one side says this, one side says something else”.
It’s just another example of a conspiracy theory based on something other than actual evidence.
Reality does not have a “slant”.
The FBI was known to be trying to blackmail Dr. King into suicide. It’s not a big jump from that to committing murder, especially given how they’ve handled situations like Ruby Ridge. Personally, if I were forced to bet on it, I’d bet they did it, given what is already known about the organization.
This is not a subject I am at all knowledgeable about so this may be a dumb question but how do we know that the FBI was blackmailing Dr. King at all and how was their blackmail supposed to encourage him to commit suicide?
Although suicide may very well be a person’s response to blackmail I find it hard to imagine that it would be the demand of a blackmailer. But then I have very little knowledge on such matters.
Here is a link you can check. There are plenty of other articles about it, should you choose to Google it.
Let’s count the logical fallacies.
[Poisoning the Well]](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html): Since the FBI did other bad things like blackmail King into suicide, we cna infer that they also committed murder. That’s wrong, of course: we can infer they committed murder only with evidence showing that they committed murder.
Biased Sample: Since the FBI acted wrongly at Ruby Ridge, we know they acted wrongly in this case. No mention of the thousands of times they have acted properly.
See also The Fallacy of Composition.
Appeal to Spite:*You’d bet they did it, because of what “we know” about the organization.
There’s also the point that Get Lives point does not address the question raised by the OP: what is the significance of the civil suit brought by the King family against a tavern-keeper, to which no government was a party?
There are still plenty of sealed documents from the original investigation. We’ll see what happens in 2027 when they are unsealed.
They did the killing. I’d bet my yearly salary. But time will tell.
Careful. Bricker may take that bet. 
If the unsealed records provide no proof for your theory, will you concede you were wrong?
The attorney who filed the lawsuit (and won a verdict of $100.00) was William Pepper, who has also written a book about his conspiracy theory. He has also successfully convinced the King family that James Earl Ray did not commit the murder. He was basically the Jim Garrison of the MLK killing.
He’s also a 911 Truther. It seems like once you get your teeth into one conspiracy, and feel the adulation from your fan club, it’s hard to give up the limelight.
Here is an interesting take down from (perhaps predictably) Gerald Posner.
From Wikipedia “Both sisters that worked at Jowers’ restaurant recanted their support for the case. Their conversation in which the main witness for Jowers admitted that the story was false was taped by the authorities. The sister admitted that Jowers had fabricated the story so he could make $300,000 from selling the story, and she in turn corroborated his story in order to get some money to pay her income tax”.
The main witness has stated that the claims were a hoax. There was no one actually defending the case and one of the main people involved was the lawyer for James Earl Ray. There should be no credibility to this verdict whatsoever.
Nonsense. Conspiracies are completely immune to evidence. 
I’ll take that bet.
From Posner’s article:
“(James Earl Ray’s) only break from Los Angeles was a two-day trip to New Orleans in mid-December 1967. A cocktail waitress he had met asked him to pick up her two children there.”
Jack Ruby employed cocktail waitresses at his nightclubs. What more proof do you need that the JFK and King assassinations were carried out by the same conspirators?
*I once knew a cat who could say “Raoul”.
…so you’re saying King was killed by Cat Stevens?
Don’t be silly - it was a cat named Kalamazoo, who subsequently left the city in a pick-up truck.
And Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” was once a popular jingle for Chevy trucks, so clearly the song must be a coded description of how the murder occurred.
Thank you, I have genuinely learned something new, which is one of the main reasons I come here to the SD. The NY Times article was really the best summery I saw on line.
That said I have to agree that cause and effect are simply not present here. Wrongdoing “A” does not automatically mean that “B” was also done. More so the events with the Weaver family bear little resemblance to the assignation of Dr. King. Other than someone was killed in part or in whole because of their political beliefs and activities.
As for a civil verdicts relevance (OP) there are many cases where the civil verdict has no direct relationship to a criminal verdict or what the view on an issue may be in the public eye. The burden of proof is significantly lower in a civil case and at least in the more public ones far more subject to emotional responses being used as evidence. Not really relevant in a Murder trial but very relevant in a “compensate me for my suffering” lawsuit. Taking that into consideration I place very little relevance in the outcome of a civil case and a great deal on the criminal case. Even in circumstances where I don’t agree with the results.
Just my two bits.