Rubin Hurrican Carter

Essay by diabloboy3High School, 12th gradeA+, March 2005

download word file, 3 pages 3.0

Downloaded 24 times

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was born on May 6th, 1937 in Clifton New Jersey. He grew up in a poverish area where crime was prominent. He was arrested as a child for stabbing a man who he claimed was trying to molest his friend. He would spend his youth in a juvenile detention center. Eventually Rubin left the detention center and joined the army. This is where he first learned to box. After arriving in New Jersey Carter was arrested because the police said he did not fulfill his entire sentence. He went back to prison to serve the remaining ten months of his term. When he was released Carter began to professionally box. He sustained a solid record and at one point seemed ready to claim the middleweight title. It was at this time that on June 17th, 1966 three white patrons were killed at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey.

Rubin and a friend of his John Artis were arrested and tried for the killings. Carter and Artis were eventually convicted by an all white jury even though the state had unstable testimonies by two former convicts. They were sentenced to life behind bars in 1967. In 1974 Carter published The Sixteenth Round which was his interpretation of what took place leading up to his incarceration. He gained a lot of popularity from it and it eventually fell into the hands of Lesra Martin. In 1976, Carter was retried after being on parole for a short period of time and convicted again. Carter would eventually find help from Lesra Martin and a group of Canadians. After several years the Canadians and Carters Lawyers tried to get a hearing to prove that Rubin did not have a fair trial. After 19 years behind bars Federal District...