ruben "hurrucane" carter.. what really went down?

Factual Questions
1

Yesterday, on my way to work, I had some college station on the radio. Bob Dylan’s song “hurricane” was on. Now, I know that hurricane carter was a boxer who was convicted and jailed for murder. A lot of people, including dylan, feel he was wrongly accused.

I also know a film about mr. carter came out last year, which was generally panned by critics as being factually innacurate and more or less too sympathetic to hurricane carter’s situation, altho, said reviews said that he may or probably was innocent.

Dylan’s “hurricane” was a passionate and excellent song. but was he right? what REALLY went down? The dylan song indicated that 3 people were killed in a new jersey bar. the cops pulled over hurricane because he was black. one of the dying victims indicated that hurricane was not they guy. the police intimidated some white guys who had rap sheets/warrents/a lot to lose to implicate carter. also, the dylan song claims that the police were unable to find the hurricane carter gun which supposedly killed these guys.

OK, after hearing the song, i searched the web. All I could find were a bunch of hysterical “he did it, they found shell casings and he was a shitty boxer to boot” and “the whiteys yet again fuck the black man” pages.

So, I’m ignorant. fill me in on hurricane carter. I’ll still enjoy the song no matter what the verdict.

2

First, who cares how good a boxer he was? That’s no more relevant than how good a football player O. J. Simpson was. Carter’s case was typical of a lot of bad convictions for murder. The police have a murder to solve and they find somebody for whom there’s a tiny bit of circumstantial evidence that he did the crime. There’s nobody else that they have to pin the murder on and they’re desperate to solve the case. (Remember, the jobs of district attorney and police commissioner depend on “solving” crimes, particularly murders. Nobody said that they have to be solved correctly. Also, police can, just like anyone else, get “locked onto” a single theory of how a crime was committed and who did it and ignore later evidence that contradicts their favorite theory.) By the time they get to court, the real evidence they have varies between nothing and a passible but not quite convincing case. By various means (sometimes by faking evidence, but often by just a hysterically overdone speech by the district attorney), they manage to get a conviction. The defendents are usually black, mostly poor, and often already have police records. The juries are mostly white and not inclined to feel sympathetic to a black male who’s already done some minor crime.

Did the defendents really do the crime? About half the time, I suspect, they really did do it. The problem is that no one knows which half of these cases are ones in which the person convicted did it. The police and the district attorneys don’t really care. If they want to keep their jobs (and, they tell themselves, if they want to keep criminals off the streets), they have to bring to juries some cases where they know perfectly well that it’s not clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendent did it.

This means that anti-capital punishment activists have a difficult case to make if they want to defend every controversial case where someone is being executed for a murder. In some of these controversial cases did the person about to be executed actually do the murder? I suspect that in about half of the prominent cases they really did do the murder. The problem again is that no one knows which half. The evidence was never beyond a reasonable doubt and often it was very poor. This means that activists are often forced to make a stronger case than they really can. The real point should not be that we know for sure that this person didn’t do it but that we simply don’t have good evidence either way.

3

Allowing for the fact that it was a popular song, and thus given to hyperbole, Dylan’s “Hurricane” was not terribly inaccurate. Carter was convicted on very shakey witness testimony by criminals who had cut a deal with the DA, which is why it was eventually overturned on appeal.

You’re right that because Carter became a “cause celebre”, it’s difficult to find objective material. This timeline doesn’t seem to bad:

http://www.bergen.com/news/kelgraf1200003264.htm

Lest we believe that only black defendants get bad verdicts, it appears to many that the Sam Sheppard conviction was grossly in error, also.

Now, Dylan’s “Joey” is entirely different kettle of fish … he can’t blame the entire thing on Jacques Levy. Though, truthfully, I don’t find the song as bad as a lot of people do - he’s done a lot better, but he’s done a few worse.

4

Interestingly enough, some years after his release, Reuban Carter was falsely arrested again–in Toronto I believe. When the cops realized who they’d gotten, they were practically begging him to leave. Heh.

5

I understand Rodney King has also been arrested a few times after the famous incident and, in very case, when they realize who they have they beg him to leave without suing them.:slight_smile:

6

I have seen the tapes of the fight. The real one not the Hollywood “Black Loses Because of the White Conspiracy” fight. Hurricane lost. Period. End of story. Be a better boxer and maybe the white guy loses next time.

For info on the legal case against Carter look here:
http://www.graphicwitness.com/carter/

Two juries found him guilty. That’s good enough for me.

7

Did you choose your screen name for sarcasm? :wink:

8

2sense:

No.

Not for sarcasm.

Nor do I find the line you chose to quote to be the least bit sarcastic or cynical. I really do believe it. But then I did take the time to research the subject, not just reply with my opinion based on the media and Hollywood.

I am not saying that the jury system works everytime (Take the OJ trial for example) But two separate juries found Carter guilty. There were two blacks on the second jury. If the first decision was based on race, what was the second finding based on?
You can order the tape of the famous fight at http://www.joeygiardello.com/ and decide for yourself who won. Of course you won’t. To do so would be to have an open mind. To do so would be to question what Hollywood and the media spoon-feed you. Fear of the truth might be the most powerful reason for not looking. Hide your head in the sand. It will all go away.

9

Cynical1,

The fact that two juries found Carter guilty is not proof by itself. Look at this URL:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm

It’s about the Scottsboro boys, a famous case where the defendents were found guilty in four separate rounds of trials (and there were several trials in each round), despite the fact that nearly everyone today agrees that no crime was even committed.

The URL you post though does make a good case that Carter was guilty.

10

One interesting thing in the Carter case is that the New Jersey Supreme Court and US District Court (upheld by the Supreme Court) both overturned convictions. In these cases, you are taking about judge’s rulings, not jury trials. I find that significant. Juries are far more susceptible to media manipulation and specious emotional appeal than upper court judges, IMO. You know the old canard - if you’re guilty, and trying to get away with it, go in front of a jury. If you’re innocent, and think you can demonstrate the fact, take a hearing in front of a judge.

If you TRY to separate the facts out, it appears that the prosecution had only circumstantial evidence apart from two witness accounts best described as unreliable. Carter may have done it, but there wasn’t evidence enough to convict, when you get right down to it. That, coupled to gross improprieties in handling the case, is why the upper courts overturned the convictions.

Whether or not Carter was a good enough boxer to have been “champion of the world” is irrelevent, of course. Dylan and Hollywood are providing popular entertainment, not documentaries, and are entitled to have slants and engage in hyperbole for the sake of art. They can even out-and-out lie, if it makes a better story. It has been thus all the way back to the hatchet job that Will Shakespeare did on poor old Richard III. I haven’t seen the movie. The Dylan song is a good one. Still, if you peel away Dylan’s obvious bias, I don’t think he played that loose with the facts of the case. If he inflated Carter’s boxing skills for the sake of a good song, so what?

Not that that makes Dylan “evidence”. “Evidence” was a matter for examination by the juries and judges. I don’t like the implication that someone who believes the New Jersey Supreme Court and the US District Court were correct has been mindlessly manipulated by popular culture.

You are correct in pointing out that too many people take fictionalized accounts at face value. One only has to read these boards for a while to realize how pervasive that is - I want to cringe every time somebody says “In <insert TV show>, <insert character played by actor> did this …”. I’m guilty of it myself, sometimes. But don’t dismiss everybody in a discussion where there is room for debate so sweepingly.

And Dylan was still out to lunch lionizing Joey Gallo … another one that he did in about that same time frame, which didn’t make it to the “Desire” album was “Catfish” - that was an odd choice, too, and reputedly, Mr. Hunter did not appreciate it.

11

http://www.graphicwitness.com/carter/