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Remembering The Hurricane

By TChris, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Sun Jun 11, 2006 at 03:00:25 PM EST
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by TChris

The first entry in a two part series takes a look at the controversial convictions of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the killings that spawned Carter's convictions, as well as a Dylan song and a movie.

In his decision, [federal District Judge H. Lee] Sarokin uses a phrase that still rankles those on the law enforcement side of the case: "...the petitioners' convictions were predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure...."

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    Remembering The Hurricane | 4 comments (4 topical)
    Re: Remembering The Hurricane (none / 0) (#1)
    by scribe on Sun Jun 11, 2006 at 04:07:42 PM EST
    FWIW- Humphreys and Marmo are both still judges in Paterson. Humphreys sits mostly on civil cases, Marmo, criminal. Humphreys had been, for a while the chief judge of Essex County (Newark), then went up to the Appellate Division. After his retirement from active judgeship, he was called back to work in Paterson. He still has some of the press clippings from the Carter case on the wall in his chambers, facing his desk. The most prominent is a quote of him taking the press and celebrities to task for their involvement, something about trying cases in the papers. He sat criminal cases in Essex for a while, too. Leopizzi retired from the judiciary some years ago and now is back in politics (NJ judges are required to give up any political activity as a condition of employment) and heads a family real estate firm. East 18th Street is still a rough neighborhood - always has been, always will be. There are any number of people in the Paterson courthouse who have worked there since this all began, never missing a check. Most of them won't talk about the case. If they will, it'll be in low tones but their analysis will sound a bit like Tony Soprano; they're sure of Carter's guilt. And the racial fault lines are still strongly evident in Paterson.

    Re: Remembering The Hurricane (none / 0) (#2)
    by Steven Sanderson on Sun Jun 11, 2006 at 05:19:29 PM EST
    During Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour the troup performed a concert for Carter and his fellow inmates at the Clinton Correctional Facility. Footage of that concert was included in Dylan's movie, "Renaldo & Clara." The movie isn't commercially available, however, pirated copies can be found, from what I've heard.

    Re: Remembering The Hurricane (none / 0) (#3)
    by weezie on Sun Jun 11, 2006 at 06:17:51 PM EST
    Denzel was super in that movie.

    Re: Remembering The Hurricane (none / 0) (#4)
    by cpinva on Sun Jun 11, 2006 at 08:55:57 PM EST
    interestingly enough, to this day, i don't think anyone has ever definitively determined the actual killer(s). absent a death-bed confession, i doubt they ever will.

    Remembering The Hurricane | 4 comments (4 topical)