Rubin "Hurricane" Carter has died

[tachosomoza]

http://www.bbc.com/news/27097854


US former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, whose wrongful conviction for murder caused an international outcry, has died at the age of 76.
He died on Sunday at his home in Toronto, Canada, his friend and former co-defendant John Artis, confirmed.
Carter spent 19 years in prison for three murders in New Jersey in 1966.
The alleged racial motivations behind the incarceration became well-known in Bob Dylan's song Hurricane, several books and a film.
Artis said Carter had died in his sleep, following a battle with prostate cancer, AP news agency reported.
Carter was charged with the murder of three white people in New Jersey in 1966.

He was convicted on the evidence of two white prosecution witnesses, who were attempting to commit a burglary near the location of the murders.
The witnesses recanted their statements in 1974, and Carter was briefly freed in 1976 after the guilty verdicts were overturned.
The case made Carter a high-profile figure in the civil-rights movement, and famous campaigners including Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali expressed their support for him.

[blake 3:17]

Sad news. Much respect, much love.

[tachosomoza]

He and his friend were convicted twice based on the testimony of two white burglars who were in the area ACTUALLY planning on committing a crime. The white jury chose to believe white criminals over a famous black boxer.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Rest in peace.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

God, that is fucked up. I had no idea he was the inspiration for Dylan's song though, I love that song. I always wondered who it was about. I guess a quick Google search could have told me, lol.

Very sad news either way.

[BIXX]

God damn... This is sad. I suppose at least he eventually was proven not guilty. However, he will be remembered.

[Prometeo liberado]

Oddly enough his caretaker whom he lived with was the other man convicted with him. Together till the end. RIP.

[Brutus]

God, that is fucked up. I had no idea he was the inspiration for Dylan's song though, I love that song. I always wondered who it was about. I guess a quick Google search could have told me, lol.

Very sad news either way.

Dude, it mentions the name "Rubin Carter". It's pretty obvious :p

[blake 3:17]

Hurricane Carter’s dying wish
He asks Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson to free another man who was wrongly convicted
BY RUBIN CARTER NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, February 21, 2014, 4:00 AM



You may remember me from my other life as a middleweight boxer. But fate had other plans for me; I was wrongly convicted of a triple murder in Paterson, New Jersey, and spent 19 years in prison trying, along with generous friends and good people from every walk of life, to right this wrong and gain my freedom.

I am now quite literally on my deathbed and am making my final wish to those with the legal authority to act.
My single regret in life is that David McCallum of Brooklyn — a man incarcerated in 1985, the same year I was released, and represented by Innocence International since 2004 — is still in prison. I request only that McCallum be granted a full hearing by the Brooklyn conviction integrity unit, now under the auspices of the new district attorney, Ken Thompson.
Knowing what I do, I am certain that when the facts are brought to light, Thompson will recommend his immediate release.
A man like McCallum, who has been wrongly convicted and has so far spent 28 years (beginning when he was just 16) behind bars, needs an unprejudiced higher authority, a person with nothing to lose or gain by righting an injustice, to examine the evidence that people have refused to act on all these years. Is it willful blindness or self-interest that was to blame?

Willie Stuckey, who was wrongly convicted along with McCallum, has already died in prison. Do we need David to die as well to avoid an inconvenient truth?
The details of this case would be the subject of the hearing, but I can say unequivocally that McCallum (who is being represented pro bono by attorneys Oscar Michelen and John O’Hara) and Stuckey are as innocent of the kidnapping and murder of 20-year-old Nathan Blenner in October of 1985 as anyone now reading this plea.

Not a single piece of evidence ever implicated them in this crime nor placed them anywhere near the scene. Their two confessions, gained by force and trickery, are not corroborated even by each other; they read as if two different crimes were committed.


full article: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/hurricane-carter-dying-article-1.1621747

[The Intransigent Faction]

There are prisons made of brick, steel and mortar. And then there are prisons without visible walls — prisons of poverty, illiteracy and racism.

Our task is to recognize the interconnectedness and the sameness of all these prisons, and then do something about them, because any kind of prison is no friend of mine. It brings out the hurricane in me.

Sad news. :(