Hurricane-Bob Dylan

Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops.
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin' around
He said, "I saw two men runnin' out, they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy!"
Yes, here's the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Four months later, the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim."

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land

Where justice is a game.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Myth #1
Hurricane Carter was "wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn't commit," and he's been "exonerated."

Hurricane Carter and his co-accused, John Artis, have never been found "not guilty" of the Lafayette Grill Murders. They were twice convicted, and twice the convictions were set aside on the grounds that they didn't get a fair trial. The State of New Jersey decided not to re-try them a third time because so much time had passed, and withdrew the indictments against them.

Myth #2
Carter was framed because he "was well-known for his incendiary voice in the civil rights movement."

It's amazing how many journalists have repeated Carter's claim that he was "well known for his views on black self-defence," or "known to the Paterson police for his civil rights activities," or that "he held a reputation as a black militant in racially tense Paterson," when there is zero evidence that Hurricane Carter was an activist, or that he even lifted a finger for the civil rights movement. This bogus claim is central to Carter's accusation that he was framed by the police, but it's gone unchecked and unchallenged for thirty years.

Myth # 3
Carter was framed by racist, corrupt police and prosecutors. "His temperament, his background, and the color of his skin made him the perfect scapegoat."

This claim is frequently made, but is not proven. Carter and his defenders present a one-sided view of events and haven't told you about the evidence against Carter and Artis. This website, on the other hand, demonstrates that the evidence Carter provides to "prove" he was harassed and framed, is bogus. He changes dates and makes false and misleading statements but his paranoid version of events has been taken at face value. The movie The Hurricane shows Carter being railroaded by one racist cop -- this is pure Hollywood hokum. The Canadians did not "uncover... evidence that he had been framed by corrupt officials," and neither did anyone else.

Myth: #4
"The case against Carter was thick with racism and thin on evidence." Carter and Artis were railroaded by an all-white jury.

During the jury selection phase of the first trial, the prosecution and the defence examined a staggering 377 jurors. The defence used up all of their challenges (exercising the right to refuse someone for jury duty.). The prosecution only used eight of their challenges. The first jury included one black man, although his name was not drawn for the final deliberations. "All-white" doesn't necessarily mean "all-racist." The second jury, drawn from a jury pool of 250, included two blacks. The defense gave all the potential jurors a list of over 40 questions to test them on their racial attitudes. Anyone who expressed prejudice during the jury selection process was instantly excluded from the jury by the judge. Even so, Carter and Artis were still re-convicted.

Myth #5
Carter and Artis passed lie detector tests.

In his book, The Sixteenth Round, Carter quotes Sgt. McGuire (the officer who gave the tests), as saying, "Both of them are clean. They had nothing to do with the crime." In the book Hurricane, by James Hirsch, McGuire is quoted as saying, "he didn't participate in these crimes, but he may know who was involved." The actual report states, "This subject was attempting deception to all the pertinent questions. And was involved in this crime."

Myth #6
Like the Bob Dylan song explains, Carter and Artis were convicted on the word of Bello and Bradley, who were thieves and liars. And the surviving shooting victim, the one with "one dyin' eye," said "(Carter) ain't the guy."

Al Bello, the eyewitness who says he saw Carter and Artis fleeing the scene of the crime, was indeed a lookout man for a burglary. But his eyewitness testimony helped police track down Carter's car minutes after the crime. There was other evidence linking Carter to the crime. Even Carter and Artis's lawyers admitted there was a "mountain of incriminating evidence" against them. At trial, Willie Marins, the surviving shooting victim said he did not know if Carter and Artis were the killers.

Myth #7
Carter and Artis had "rock solid" alibis for the time of the murders.

Actually, they've got several -- take your pick. When Carter and Artis were first questioned, they gave conflicting versions of their activities that night. When Carter wrote his autobiography, the Sixteenth Round, he gave another version. James S. Hirsch reports a different alibi for Carter in the book Hurricane. At the second trial, four of Carter's alibi witnesses from the first trial testified that Carter asked them to lie.

Myth #8
Carter was stopped by the police only because he was DWB -- Driving While Black.

Carter claims that when Sgt. Capter stopped him, Capter said, "Awww, shit. Hurricane, I didn't know it was you" (as shown in the movie). This is false. Sgt. Capter and his partner were looking specifically for Carter and his car because it matched the description of the getaway car given by two eyewitnesses. But Bob Dylan and Hollywood fell for Carter's version.

Myth #9
John Artis was about to go to college on an athletic scholarship
when he was arrested for the murders.

As the 1987 prosecutor's brief states: "John Artis had been out of high school for two years at the time of the murders in June 1966. He was not arrested until October 1966 and he had not begun college at that point. There was no evidence that he ever had submitted any papers towards college enrollment. There was no evidence to show that, at the time of the murders, John Artis had a college scholarship..." In fact, John Artis had been drafted into the Army.

Myth #10
Hurricane Carter was "at the peak" of his career, "slated to contend" or "about to challenge" for the world middleweight boxing title when he was arrested.

Carter might have been hoping to re-challenge for the championship, but his career was on a downhill slide. Then-world champion, Dick Tiger, beat him like a gong the year before the murders. After that, Carter had nine more boxing matches and he lost five of them