Rubin Carter

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (born May 6, 1937), middleweight boxer from 1961?1966, is better known for his controversial convictions (1967, 1976) for the alleged murder of three people at the Lafayette Grill, Paterson, New Jersey, in June, 1966, and his subsequent release from prison (1985).

Convictions and appeals

On June 17, 1966, at about 2:30 AM, two black males entered the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey and started shooting. The bartender and one male customer were killed instantly. A badly-wounded female customer died almost a month later, while a third customer survived the attack, despite being shot in the head and losing the sight in one eye. Because Carter's car fit the description, Carter and a companion, John Artis, were brought to the scene and questioned extensively before being released. There was little physical evidence, police didn't take fingerprints at the crime scene, didn't conduct a paraffin test on Carter and Artis, and no eyewitness identified them as the killers.

Related Topics:
June 17 - 1966 - Paterson, New Jersey - John Artis

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However, several months later, two petty criminals named Alfred Bello and Arthur Dexter Bradley ? who had been near the Lafayette to commit a burglary that same night ? identified the two black males that they claimed to have seen carrying weapons outside the bar as Carter and Artis. This, plus the identification of Carter's car by another witness, and the presence in Carter's car of ammunition of the same calibers, but different brands, than that used in the murders, convinced an all-white jury that Carter and Artis were the killers. Both men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Related Topics:
Alfred Bello - Arthur Dexter Bradley

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During his time in prison, Carter wrote his autobiography "The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to #45472" which was published in 1974. He maintained his innocence, and over the next nine years won increasing public support for a retrial or pardon. Bob Dylan wrote and performed a song, called "Hurricane"(1975), which expressed the view that Carter was innocent. Meanwhile, Carter's supporters persuaded Bello and Bradley to recant, or retract the stories they had told at the 1967 trial.

Related Topics:
Bob Dylan - Hurricane

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While the recantations failed to produce a retrial, additional evidence surfaced at the same time, and in 1976 the New Jersey Supreme Court granted Carter and Artis a new trial. Although Bello's credibility was questionable, he repeated his 1967 trial testimony, and that, plus the ammunition and the identification of Carter's automobile, produced yet another conviction, this time from a jury including two African-American jurors. Carter and Artis were again sentenced to life in prison.

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Carter and his supporters continued to appeal on various grounds. In 1982, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed his convictions in a 4-3 decision. Three years later, Carter's attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal court, an often unsuccessful legal petition requesting federal review of the constitutionality of state court decisions. The effort paid off; in 1985, United States District Court judge H. Lee Sarokin ruled that Carter and Artis had not received a fair trial, saying that the prosecution had been "based on racism rather than reason and concealment rather than disclosure." He chided the State for having withheld evidence regarding Bello's problematic polygraph testing and related issues, and set aside their convictions. New Jersey prosecutors unsuccessfully appealed Sarokin's ruling all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

Related Topics:
Habeas corpus - H. Lee Sarokin - Polygraph

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Although they could have tried the two a third time, Passaic County prosecutors chose not to. Witnesses had disappeared or died, the cost would have been extremely high, and even a conviction would have produced little result. Artis, for one, had already been paroled, and would not have been returned to prison even had he been re-convicted. In 1988, New Jersey prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the original indictments brought against Carter and Artis in 1966, effectively dropping all charges.

Related Topics:
Passaic County - Parole

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