Ten-Count for Hurricane Carter
By Robert Ecksel on April 20, 2014 for boxing.com
http://ift.tt/1lw0IhJ
Former middleweight contender Rubin “Hurricane” Carter passed away Sunday morning at his home in Toronto after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 76.
Hurricane Carter was born on May 6, 1937 in Clifton, New Jersey, the fourth of seven children. Carter wrote about those early years in his autobiography, The Sixteenth Round: “The best thing I can say about my childhood is that I survived it.”
Plagued by a stammer for which he was bullied and a dismissive, unsympathetic father, Carter fought back the only way he knew how, by being incorrigible. He began stealing at an early age. When he was nine his father turned him into the police for shoplifting from a store in Paterson.
When he was in the fourth grade, Carter was removed from public school and placed in a special school for the disruptive.
At the age of 11 he was sent to the Jamesburg State Home for Boys after stabbing a man who allegedly made sexual advances. After six years in reform school, where the guards taunted and beat him, Carter escaped and joined the Army.
The discipline and structure served him well. Carter became a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division in West Germany. He also learned how to box, becoming the Army’s European light welterweight champion with a record of 51-5 with 35 knockouts.
“They were strong, honest people,” Carter said about his fellow boxers during that time, “hardworking and equally hard-fighting. There were no complications there whatsoever, no tensions, no fears.”
Carter left the Army in May 1956, returned to Paterson, and was hired as a truck driver. A month later his past caught up with him and he was busted for bolting from Jamesburg and sentenced to 10 months at the Annandale Reformatory.
After his release Carter, unreformed, unrepentant, and angrier than ever, went on a crime spree that included muggings and assault and robbery. Rather than face trial, he copped a plea and was jailed for four years in Trenton State Prison where, Carter wrote, “quiet rage became my constant companion.”
One day after he was released from prison in September 1961 he turned pro. That auspicious day was September 22, 1961, in Annapolis, Maryland, where Rubin Carter won a split decision victory over 1-0 Pike Reed.
The formerly voiceless troublemaker from Clifton, New Jersey, had finally found his voice: “I was in my element now. Fighting was the pulse beat of my heart and I loved it.”
Making up for lost time, Carter fought three more times that year and 12 times in 1962, including wins over Florentino Fernandez (31-5) and Holly Mims (59-23-6). Never mistaken for a stylist, Carter was an aggressive slugger with a powerful left hook who fast became a fan favorite.
He fought six times in 1963, defeating, among others, George Benton in May and Emile Griffith in December. Carter was also ranked among the top ten middleweights by The Ring magazine.
Rubin Carter was on top of the world and lived accordingly. He was fly. He was flashy. He wore custom-made suits. He drove a black Cadillac with the words “Rubin Hurricane Carter” engraved in silver letters next to the headlights. Everyone in Paterson knew who the Hurricane was, friend and foe alike. Carter would have had it no other way.
He got his coveted shot at the middleweight crown held by Joey Giardello on December 14, 1964, in the champion’s hometown. Hurricane started strong but faded late and lost a close decision after 15 rounds.
After the big fight in Philly, the pinnacle of Carter’s career, his decline was precipitous. He fought nine times in 1965, but when he stepped up the competition he inevitably lost. The old anger didn’t return, simply because the old anger never left. Early in 1965 in London, gunshots were fired in his hotel room.
The proverbial shit hit the fan in 1966.
After midnight on June 17, 1966, Carter was barhopping and stopped at a night spot called the Night Spot. Half a mile away, at about 2:30 am, two black men entered a bar and killed two white men and a white woman. Their weapons of choice were a shotgun and pistol, and the presumed motive was retaliation for a white on black murder earlier that night.
Carter and a causal acquaintance, John Artis, were stopped by the police. Carter’s leased white sedan supposedly looked like the getaway car. Carter and Artis, like the killers, were black. But an eyewitness to the shooting failed to identify them, and they both passed lie detector tests, so the two men were released.
Two months later, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis were arrested and charged with three counts of murder.
The trial, as trials often are, was a joke. Although the defendants had alibi witnesses who placed them elsewhere at the time of the murders, two prosecution witnesses, Alfred P. Bello and Arthur D. Bradley, white ex-cons who testified that they were in the vicinity of the murders because they were attempting to burglarize a nearby factory, said they saw Carter and Artis leaving the tavern with guns in their hands.
The defendants were found guilty. Carter received a sentence of 30 years to life. Artis, because he wasn’t Hurricane Carter, got 15 years to life. The New Jersey Supreme Court denied their appeals for a new trial.
Carter made the most of his years in prison. He was defiant. He refused to conform. He found peace of a sort in isolation. He read and studied history, philosophy, religion, metaphysics, and of course the law.
In 1974 Bello and Bradley recanted their testimony and the two guilty verdicts were overturned in 1976. Prosecutorial misconduct was also a factor.
But it wasn’t over. A second trial, in December 1976, featured Bello recanting his recantation and Carter and Artis were jailed again. Nine more years passed before Judge H. Lee Sarokin overturned the convictions on constitutional grounds. Twenty-two years after the original indictments, Rubin Carter and John Artis were free at last.
Carter’s case had become a cause célèbre. Bob Dylan wrote a song. Denzel Washington was in a movie. Amnesty International called him as a “prisoner of conscience.” Muhammad Ali was in his corner. And Carter fought the criminal justice system until his dying day.
“To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all.”
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By Robert Ecksel on April 20, 2014 for boxing.com
http://ift.tt/1lw0IhJ
Former middleweight contender Rubin “Hurricane” Carter passed away Sunday morning at his home in Toronto after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 76.
Hurricane Carter was born on May 6, 1937 in Clifton, New Jersey, the fourth of seven children. Carter wrote about those early years in his autobiography, The Sixteenth Round: “The best thing I can say about my childhood is that I survived it.”
Plagued by a stammer for which he was bullied and a dismissive, unsympathetic father, Carter fought back the only way he knew how, by being incorrigible. He began stealing at an early age. When he was nine his father turned him into the police for shoplifting from a store in Paterson.
When he was in the fourth grade, Carter was removed from public school and placed in a special school for the disruptive.
At the age of 11 he was sent to the Jamesburg State Home for Boys after stabbing a man who allegedly made sexual advances. After six years in reform school, where the guards taunted and beat him, Carter escaped and joined the Army.
The discipline and structure served him well. Carter became a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division in West Germany. He also learned how to box, becoming the Army’s European light welterweight champion with a record of 51-5 with 35 knockouts.
“They were strong, honest people,” Carter said about his fellow boxers during that time, “hardworking and equally hard-fighting. There were no complications there whatsoever, no tensions, no fears.”
Carter left the Army in May 1956, returned to Paterson, and was hired as a truck driver. A month later his past caught up with him and he was busted for bolting from Jamesburg and sentenced to 10 months at the Annandale Reformatory.
After his release Carter, unreformed, unrepentant, and angrier than ever, went on a crime spree that included muggings and assault and robbery. Rather than face trial, he copped a plea and was jailed for four years in Trenton State Prison where, Carter wrote, “quiet rage became my constant companion.”
One day after he was released from prison in September 1961 he turned pro. That auspicious day was September 22, 1961, in Annapolis, Maryland, where Rubin Carter won a split decision victory over 1-0 Pike Reed.
The formerly voiceless troublemaker from Clifton, New Jersey, had finally found his voice: “I was in my element now. Fighting was the pulse beat of my heart and I loved it.”
Making up for lost time, Carter fought three more times that year and 12 times in 1962, including wins over Florentino Fernandez (31-5) and Holly Mims (59-23-6). Never mistaken for a stylist, Carter was an aggressive slugger with a powerful left hook who fast became a fan favorite.
He fought six times in 1963, defeating, among others, George Benton in May and Emile Griffith in December. Carter was also ranked among the top ten middleweights by The Ring magazine.
Rubin Carter was on top of the world and lived accordingly. He was fly. He was flashy. He wore custom-made suits. He drove a black Cadillac with the words “Rubin Hurricane Carter” engraved in silver letters next to the headlights. Everyone in Paterson knew who the Hurricane was, friend and foe alike. Carter would have had it no other way.
He got his coveted shot at the middleweight crown held by Joey Giardello on December 14, 1964, in the champion’s hometown. Hurricane started strong but faded late and lost a close decision after 15 rounds.
After the big fight in Philly, the pinnacle of Carter’s career, his decline was precipitous. He fought nine times in 1965, but when he stepped up the competition he inevitably lost. The old anger didn’t return, simply because the old anger never left. Early in 1965 in London, gunshots were fired in his hotel room.
The proverbial shit hit the fan in 1966.
After midnight on June 17, 1966, Carter was barhopping and stopped at a night spot called the Night Spot. Half a mile away, at about 2:30 am, two black men entered a bar and killed two white men and a white woman. Their weapons of choice were a shotgun and pistol, and the presumed motive was retaliation for a white on black murder earlier that night.
Carter and a causal acquaintance, John Artis, were stopped by the police. Carter’s leased white sedan supposedly looked like the getaway car. Carter and Artis, like the killers, were black. But an eyewitness to the shooting failed to identify them, and they both passed lie detector tests, so the two men were released.
Two months later, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and John Artis were arrested and charged with three counts of murder.
The trial, as trials often are, was a joke. Although the defendants had alibi witnesses who placed them elsewhere at the time of the murders, two prosecution witnesses, Alfred P. Bello and Arthur D. Bradley, white ex-cons who testified that they were in the vicinity of the murders because they were attempting to burglarize a nearby factory, said they saw Carter and Artis leaving the tavern with guns in their hands.
The defendants were found guilty. Carter received a sentence of 30 years to life. Artis, because he wasn’t Hurricane Carter, got 15 years to life. The New Jersey Supreme Court denied their appeals for a new trial.
Carter made the most of his years in prison. He was defiant. He refused to conform. He found peace of a sort in isolation. He read and studied history, philosophy, religion, metaphysics, and of course the law.
In 1974 Bello and Bradley recanted their testimony and the two guilty verdicts were overturned in 1976. Prosecutorial misconduct was also a factor.
But it wasn’t over. A second trial, in December 1976, featured Bello recanting his recantation and Carter and Artis were jailed again. Nine more years passed before Judge H. Lee Sarokin overturned the convictions on constitutional grounds. Twenty-two years after the original indictments, Rubin Carter and John Artis were free at last.
Carter’s case had become a cause célèbre. Bob Dylan wrote a song. Denzel Washington was in a movie. Amnesty International called him as a “prisoner of conscience.” Muhammad Ali was in his corner. And Carter fought the criminal justice system until his dying day.
“To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all.”
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Statistics: Posted by bgosh — Apr 21. 2014, 16:01 — Replies 0 — Views 9
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