The professor is referring to the verdict of the only trial by jury that reviewed the extensive evidence about the assassination of ML King. Yesterday was the 45th anniversary (April 4, 1968) of this despicable crime committed by secret agencies of the US as declared unanimously by a jury in Tennessee in 1999 after an extensive review of all the evidence.
A criminal trial of the official guilty party, James Earl Ray, was never held because he initially "confessed" to the killing. Later he recanted this confession, but the government blocked all attempts to bring him to trial. Ray eventually died in prison.
In 1999 the King Family pursued a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee. They were not going after monetary gain, only justice and truth which the King family felt strongly that they, and the government's patsy James Earl Ray, had been denied. The civil suit was brought against a man, Loyd Jowers, who was terminally ill and confessed to a role in the crime, and "others, including governmental agencies." They were essentially putting the CIA on trial. The jury found that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by a conspiracy involving government agencies. (Read An Act of State by William Pepper for all the details. See also this article explaining why the shadow government needed to be rid of King.)
The trial received scant coverage by the ever compliant media under the control of the One Percent. After the verdict one of their main "newspapers of record", The Washington Post, immediately discredited the verdict with this statement:
Memphis prosecutors interviewed the two sisters whom Pepper claimed had worked in Jowers's restaurant and had corroborated his story. Both recanted. Moreover, in a telephone conversation between the sisters, taped by authorities, the main witness for Jowers admitted that the entire story was false.This was an extremely violent period in US history that witnessed numerous killings of key political actors who actively opposed, or inhibited, foreign and domestic policies that the shadow government of the US wanted to pursue--mainly the war in Vietnam and other imperial adventures abroad and racist and anti-labor policies within the US.
By the time of his assassination (April 4, 1968) the political operatives of the One Percent (CIA/FBI and affiliated underworld criminals) had become very skilled at assassinations. They had practiced for years on various attempts (some have estimated over 200 attempts) on Fidel Castro but without success.
They had decided that John Kennedy was to be eliminated because he was refusing to follow their agenda of rollback in Vietnam and was pursuing secret talks with Khrushchev on disarmament. With the successful assassination of John Kennedy in November of 1963, they had perfected the art of assassination within the US by adding designated patsies and devising coverups. (Read JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass).
Filled with arrogance from this triumph, they proceeded to kill others who posed threats to their rule--Malcolm X in 1965, Martin Luther King in April, 1968 followed by Robert Kennedy in June. (Of course, there were many others of less stature who were murdered, for example, Black Panther leaders.)
A public criminal trial was never allowed in any of these cases because of the government's "sovereign immunity". In our land of the free where the government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people, the people cannot put a U.S. intelligence agency on trial.