Judge Says Ray Can’t Leave Jail for Surgery

A judge refused to let James Earl Ray go free on bail to seek a liver transplant, an operation his lawyers say is his only hope of living long enough to pursue a trial in the slaying of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Ray’s lawyers argued that without the operation he could be dead in months, but State Judge Cheryl Blackburn said in Nashville that the lawyers had failed to produce evidence that Ray’s guilty plea should be set aside so that he could be granted a trial. Ray, 69, is serving a 99-year sentence for the 1968 King shooting. Tennessee hospitals have refused to consider him as a transplant candidate because of his age, and prison officials won’t let him travel out of state.