Rubin Carter (born May 6, 1937) was a professional middleweight boxer from 1961 to 1966 and a member of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame. In 1966 Carter was arrested for multiple homicides in Lafayette, New Jersey. He and another man, John Artis, were convicted for the murders but the charges were later cleared in 1985. From 1993 to 2005 Carter served as executive director of The Association of the Wrongly Convicted.
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Early life
Carters was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey Paterson is a city in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city population was 149,222. Census population projections indicate a population of 146,545 as of 2007, making it New Jersey's third largest city. It is the county seat of Passaic County. Paterson is known as the "Silk City" for its, the fourth of seven children. He acquired a criminal service, after having served 21 months of his three-year term of enlistment.
After his return to New Jersey, Carter was picked up by authorities and sentenced to an additional ten months for escaping from the reformatory. Shortly after being released, Carter was arrested for a series of street muggings, which included the assault and robbery of a middle-aged black woman. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was imprisoned in New Jersey State Prison The New Jersey State Prison , formerly known as Trenton State Prison, is a state prison in the United States operated by the New Jersey Department of Corrections. Located in Trenton, New Jersey, it accommodated over 1,900 prisoners as of January, 2005 in Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of 2008, the United States Census Bureau estimated that the city of Trenton had a population of 82,883, a maximum-security facility, where he would remain for the next four years.
Boxing career
In prison, Carter resumed his interest in boxing, and upon his release in September 1961, turned professional.[1] At 5 ft 7 in (1.7 m), Carter was shorter than the average middleweight Middleweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have begun in the 1840s. In the bare-knuckle era, the first middleweight championship fight was between Tom Chandler and Dooney Harris in 1867. Chandler won, becoming known as the American middleweight champion, but he fought all of his professional career at 155–160 lb (70–72.6 kg). His shaven head, prominent mustache, unwavering stare and solid frame made him an intimidating presence in the ring. His aggressive style and punching power (resulting in many early-round knockouts) drew attention, establishing him as a crowd favorite and earning him the nickname "Hurricane." After he had beaten a number of middleweight contenders such as Florentino Fernandez, Holley Mims Holley Mims was a highly-regarded middleweight during the 1950s and 60's. His overall record 64-27-6 (13 KOs) meant that he spent much of his career ranked among the top ten middleweights. Among his notable fights was a loss to Rubin Carter in 1962, a fight that he took on one day's notice. As a result of the loss, he dropped out of Ring Magazine', Gomeo Brennan, and George Benton, the boxing world took notice. The Ring The Ring is an American boxing magazine that was first published in 1922 as a boxing and wrestling magazine. As the sporting legitimacy of professional wrestling came more into question, The Ring shifted to becoming exclusively a boxing oriented publication. The magazine is currently owned by Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Enterprises first listed him as one of its "Top 10" middleweight contenders in July 1963.
He fought six times in 1963, winning four bouts and losing two.[1] He remained ranked in the lower part of the top 10 until December 20, when he surprised the boxing world by flooring past and future world champion Emile Griffith Emile Alphonse Griffith is a former boxer who was the first fighter from the U.S. Virgin Islands ever to become a world champion. He is best known for a controversial 1962 welterweight title fight in which Benny Paret died ten days after being knocked out by Griffith. In addition to the Welterweight title Griffith was a Middleweight champion twice in the first round and scoring a technical knockout A knockout is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking. A knockout is usually awarded when one participant is unable to rise from the canvas within a specified period of time, typically because of fatigue, injury (serious or.
That win resulted in Ring Magazine ranking Carter as the #3 contender for Joey Giardello Carmine Orlando Tilelli was an American boxer who was the middleweight champion of the world from 1963 to 1965, and was better known by his professional pseudonym of Joey Giardello's world middleweight Middleweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have begun in the 1840s. In the bare-knuckle era, the first middleweight championship fight was between Tom Chandler and Dooney Harris in 1867. Chandler won, becoming known as the American middleweight champion title. Carter won two more fights (one a decision over future heavyweight Heavyweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Fighters who weigh over 200 pounds are considered heavyweights by the major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Organization, the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council, and the World Boxing Organization champion Jimmy Ellis James Albert "Jimmy" Ellis is a boxer from Louisville, Kentucky. He held the WBA Heavyweight title from 1968 to 1970) in 1964, before meeting Giardello in Philadelphia for a fifteen-round championship match on December 14. Carter fought well in the early rounds, landing a few solid rights to the head, but failed to follow them up and Giardello took control of the fight in the fifth round. The judges awarded Giardello a unanimous decision. An informal poll conducted among ringside sportswriters agreed that Giardello had outboxed the challenger. Carter continually stated that he won at least nine of the fifteen rounds.[2]
After that fight, Carter's standing as a contender—as reflected by his ranking in Ring Magazine—began to decline. He fought nine times in 1965, but lost four of five fights against top contenders (Luis Manuel Rodríguez, Englishman Harry Scott and Nigerian Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on Dick Tiger).[1] Tiger, in particular, had no problem with Carter, flooring him three times in their match. "It was", Carter said, "the worst beating that I took in my life—inside or outside the ring."[3] During his visit to London (to fight Scott) Carter was involved in an altercation at his hotel, during which he fired several shots with a pistol. In order for the bout to take place, the promoter of the event, Mickey Duff, was obliged to pay bribes to keep Carter out of the hands of the police.[4]
Carter's career record in boxing was 27 wins, 12 losses and one draw in 40 fights, with 19 total knockouts (8 KOs and 11 TKOs).[5]
He received an honorary championship title belt from the World Boxing Council The World Boxing Council was initially established by 11 countries: the United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Philippines, Panama, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil plus Puerto Rico, met in Mexico City on February 14, 1963, upon invitation of the then President of Mexico, Adolfo López Mateos, to form an international boxing in 1993, as did Joey Giardello Carmine Orlando Tilelli was an American boxer who was the middleweight champion of the world from 1963 to 1965, and was better known by his professional pseudonym of Joey Giardello at the same banquet held in Las Vegas The Las Vegas metropolitan area, also known as the Las Vegas-Paradise-Henderson Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, consisting of Clark County. A central part of the metropolitan area is the Las Vegas Valley, a 600 sq mi basin in which is located the metropolitan area's largest.
Carter is a member of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.[1]
Murders
On June 17, 1966, at approximately 2:30 a.m., two males entered the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. The English later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey. It was granted as a colony to Sir George, and started shooting.[6] The bartender, Jim Oliver, and a male customer, Jim Ropars, were killed instantly. A severely wounded female customer, Hazel Tanis, died almost a month later, having been shot in the throat, stomach, intestine, spleen and left lung, and her arm was shattered by shotgun pellets. A third customer, Steven Ryan, survived the attack, despite being shot in the head and losing sight in one eye. Both Marins and Tanis told police that the shooters had been two black males, although neither were able to identify Carter, his companion in the car, John Artis, or anyone else, as the shooters.
Petty criminal Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Individual human societies may each define crime and crimes differently. While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as " Alfred Bello, who had been near the Lafayette to commit a burglary of a factory that night, was an eyewitness. Bello later testified that he was approaching the Lafayette when two black males - one carrying a shotgun, the other a pistol - came around the corner walking towards him.[7] He ran from them, and they got into a white car that was double-parked near the Lafayette.[6] Bello was one of the first people on the scene of the shootings, as was Patricia Graham (later Patricia Valentine), a resident on the second floor (above the Lafayette). Bello (who admitted four months later that he stole $60 from the register when he went to get a dime) and Graham both called the police. Graham told the police that she saw two males get into a white car and drive westbound. Another neighbour, Cait Murtha, also heard the shots and said that when he looked from his window he saw Alfred Bello running on Lafayette Street toward 16th Street. He further reported that he heard the screech of tires and saw a white car shoot past, heading west, with two black males in the front seat.
First conviction
Carter's car matched the description provided by the witnesses. Police stopped it and brought Carter and another occupant, John Artis, to the scene about thirty minutes after the incident. There was little physical evidence; police took no fingerprints at the crime scene, and lacked the necessary facilities to conduct a paraffin test Gunshot residue is principally composed of burnt and unburnt particles from the explosive primer, the propellant, as well as components from the bullet, the cartridge case and the firearm used. There are authors who use other definitions, such as cartridge discharge residue (CDR) or firearm discharge residue (FDR) on Carter and Artis. None of the eyewitnesses identified Carter or Artis as one of the shooters. On searching the car later that night, the police discovered a live .32 caliber pistol round and a 12-gauge shotgun A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns come in a wide variety of sizes, ranging from 5.5 mm (.22 inch) bore up to 5 cm (2 inch) bore, and in a range of firearm shell; these rounds were of the same two calibers used in the shootings.[7] Carter and Artis were taken to police headquarters and questioned.
In the afternoon, both men underwent polygraph A polygraph is an instrument that measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, breathing rhythms/ratios, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions, in the belief that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from testing. Although there are serious questions about exactly what happened during the testing,[citation needed] examiner John J. McGuire subsequently reported the following conclusion about Carter: "After a careful analysis of the polygraph record of this subject, it is the opinion of the examiner that this subject was attempting deception to all the pertinent questions and was involved in this crime. After the examination, when confronted with the examiner's opinion the subject denied any participation in the crime." The scientific merit and reliability of polygraph tests are disputed, and they are generally inadmissible as evidence. Carter and Artis were released later that day.[citation needed]
Several months later, Bello disclosed to the police that he had an accomplice during the attempted burglary, one Arthur Dexter Bradley. On further questioning, Bello and Bradley both identified Carter as one of the two males they had seen carrying weapons outside the bar the night of the murders; Bello also identified Artis as the other. Based on this additional evidence, Carter and Artis were arrested and indicted.[citation needed] Bello and Bradley later admitted that they had lied in these identifications.[7] Transcripts of the interrogation of Bello and Bradley would later reveal that the two were offered assistance in their other criminal cases in return for their help with the Carter case.[7]
The defense, including famed attorney Raymond A. Brown,[8] showed that the accused didn't match one of the descriptions given by eyewitness Marins on June 17,[citation needed]but the two stuck to their testimony. The defense also produced witnesses who testified that Carter and Artis had been in another, nearby bar at about the time of the shootings.[7] However, the evidence of the identification of Carter's car by both Patricia Valentine and Bello, the ammunition found in Carter's car, and questions about the testimony given by Carter's alibi witnesses, convinced the jury that Carter and Artis were the killers. Both men were convicted and sentenced to three life terms in prison. In Carter's book, The Sixteenth Round,[9] Carter argued that the fact he and Artis were spared the death penalty Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the killing of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" . Hence, a capital crime was (notwithstanding that the jury recommended it) was surprising, and possibly attributable to the judge's own doubts as to their guilt.
Bello and Bradley recanted their testimony given at the 1967 trial, and these recantations were used as the basis for a motion for a new trial. Judge Samuel Larner, who presided over both the original trial and the recantation hearing, denied the motion.[citation needed]
Despite Larner's ruling, Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. In doing so, it passes through Midtown, the Upper East Side (including Carnegie Hill), Spanish Harlem, and Harlem. It is named after and arises from advertising guru George Lois George Lois is an award-winning American Art Director, designer, advertising leader and author. George Lois is best known for the legendary and brilliant covers for Esquire Magazine which he produced as Art Director for Esquire from 1962 to 1972. Lois' Esquire covers offered a controversial statement on life in the 1960s with subjects including organized a campaign on Carter's behalf, which led to increasing public support for a retrial or pardon. Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali is a retired American boxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered one of the greatest heavyweight championship boxers of all time. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. After turning professional, he went on to become the first boxer to lent his support to the campaign, and Bob Dylan Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was at first an informal chronicler, and later an apparently reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of his songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and & co-wrote (with Jacques Levy Jacques Levy was a Jewish American songwriter, theatre director, and clinical psychologist) and performed a song called "Hurricane Hurricane is a protest song by Bob Dylan co-written with Jacques Levy, about the imprisonment of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. It compiles alleged acts of racism and profiling against Carter, which Dylan describes as leading to a false trial and conviction" (1975), which declared that Carter was innocent. Carter also appeared as himself in Dylan's 1975 movie Renaldo and Clara Renaldo and Clara is a surrealist movie, directed by and starring Bob Dylan. Filmed in 1975, during Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour, it was released in 1978. In its original form, it is nearly four hours long.[10]
During the hearing on Bello's and Bradley's recantations, the prosecution introduced a taped interrogation of Bello that revealed promises made by the police to assist the two with various criminal cases against them. The defense had been told during cross-examination of the witnesses that no such deals had been offered to Bello and Bradley. Thus, the information concerning the deals should have been provided at the time of the trial. The New Jersey Supreme Court The New Jersey Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It has existed in three different forms under the three different state constitutions since the independence of the state in 1776. The main difference between the versions, the composition of the court, reflects the change in jurisprudence from the colonial British unanimously held that the evidence of various deals made between the prosecution and witnesses Bello and Bradley should have been disclosed to the defense before or during the 1967 trial as this could have "affected the jury's evaluation of the credibility" of the eyewitnesses. "The defendants' right to a fair trial was substantially prejudiced", said Justice Mark Sullivan.[7]
Despite public and political pressure[citation needed] to drop the case, prosecutor Burrell Ives Humphreys, decided to re-prosecute the ten-year-old murder indictments. As part of the re-investigation of the case, Humphreys had Bello polygraphed, and while the polygrapher Leonard H. Harrelson concluded that Bello was being truthful when he identified Carter and Artis as being outside the bar after the murders, Harrelson further concluded that Bello was inside the bar shortly before and at the time of the shooting, contradicting Bello's 1967 trial testimony.
Humphreys also made an offer to both Carter and Artis—a "no-risk" polygraph test. If either man would take and "pass" a polygraph test conducted by a nationally-recognized expert, Humphreys would drop the prosecution of him, while if he were to "fail" the test, there would be no adverse consequences.[citation needed] Both Carter and Artis refused Humphrey's offer.[citation needed]
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Rubin Hurricane Carter December 1963
Q. Played professional football for the Denver Broncos. Coached the Washington Redskins. Coached for the University of Maryland.
Asked by tamudancer - Tue Aug 1 20:30:25 2006 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments
A. Rubin Carter lives in Toronto. And he was a boxer.
Answered by sparkleandme4yrs - Wed Aug 2 00:27:08 2006
