Jack Kershaw
| Jack Kershaw | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 12, 1913 Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | September 7, 2010 (aged 96) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Vanderbilt University Nashville School of Law |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Noel |
John Karl "Jack" Kershaw (October 12, 1913 – September 7, 2010) was an American attorney best known for challenging the official account of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., claiming that his client James Earl Ray was an unwitting participant in a ploy devised by a mystery man named Raul to kill the civil rights leader. Kershaw was also a Southern secessionist and segregationist who helped found the League of the South. In 1998 he sculpted a monument of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Kershaw was born on October 12, 1913 in Missouri. He moved to the Old Hickory section of Nashville, Tennessee with his family in his youth. He attended Vanderbilt University, where he played on the school football team and graduated with a degree in geology. He was awarded a law degree at the Nashville Y.M.C.A. Night Law School, now known as Nashville School of Law.
Starting in 1977, Kershaw represented James Earl Ray, who had been sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Charged with firing the shot that killed Dr. King on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, Ray had pleaded guilty to the crime in 1969 at the suggestion of his attorney Percy Foreman; Ray would have faced an automatic death sentence had he been convicted of the assassination by a Tennessee state court. Ray claimed that he had been coerced into entering a plea, and Kershaw helped his client push the claim that Ray was not responsible for the shooting, which was said to have been the result of a conspiracy of an otherwise unidentified man named "Raul" whom Ray had met in Montreal. With the claim that he was "partially responsible without knowing it" as part of what Ray "thought was a gun-smuggling operation", Kershaw and his client met with representatives of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and convinced the committee to run ballistics tests — which ultimately proved inconclusive — that would show that Ray had not fired the fatal shot.
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