Maybe Rubin Hurricane Carter isn't as innocent as believed

It was easier to sway public opinion back then. People didn't have the internet to do their own research and vet what was being dished out be Hollywood and a biased media. The power of celebrity endorsements went a long way back then. Having Dylan as an ally helped to influence other celebrities who thought they were doing a good deed. Had they known all of the horrible things Carter had done in his life perhaps they could have made a more educated choice rather than rally behind an evil thug.

 

Carter was an awful human being but there were some very underhanded and murky things going on with the handling of both his cases. The nature of his character is irrelevant in that, now I've wouldn't have gone up to bat for him but the truth of the matter is that he did not get a fair trial. He was a truly bad person though who may have been a psychopath but even bad people deserve fair trials.

 

I would say that anyone who would lie on the stand to convict someone or coerce a witness to do the same, lie about/manufacture/plant evidence is an awful human being.

There’s one Rubin Carter. There’s a bunch of people who conspired to do the things I described in the above sentence, so whatever kind of human being Carter was, in this case he was far outnumbered by other awful human beings.

He lost a good chunk of his life. They lost nothing.

That isn’t justice.

 

You right. I have no retort, using past transgressions or future transgressions is a slippery slope for convictions.

 

Id like to note that Denzel Washington was involved in another movie in which he played a highly fictionalized and somewhat sanctified version of a character (if you can call this movie a sanctification): American Gangster.

The detective who was after Frank Lucas said that he and Frank Lucas being friendly afterwards was total BS.

That is Hollywood for you sometimes. I wish many of those so called biopics presented the actual story, how it happened. But, also, a lot of times producers only have what the object (or their family, like in La Bamba) say that took place. And who does not want to be seen in a better light specially by the larger public?

 

Yeah hardly any Hollywood-ification of a ‘true story’ tells the true story. They mold the story not necessarily to obfuscate the truth (in most cases the screenwriter isn’t some kind of investigative journalist digging for the real story, but hack going off what he thinks he knows the story to be … then adding elements and even characters for drama. They’re making a movie, not depicting history as it happened.

A simple example is the Iron Claw movie, which tells the story of the Von Erich family and how all but one of the kids ended up tragically dying (in part because their father was a horrible human being who drove them to it). In reality, there was even one more son who died tragically (I think another suicide) and when the filmmaker was asked about cutting him completely out of the movie the answer was along the lines of ‘Geez, don’t you think it’s bad enough?’ He was trying to get across the essence of this tragic family and thought that adding yet another sad, young death would just make it too depressing for anyone to even watch … when in reality that’s what happened.

 

I think there was some sloppy police work, but I don't know if anything was intentionally done to frame him.

 

I mean if you were ever in a situation were jail time was involved would you want to go to jail off the back of bad police work. The police were in this case so sloppy that it could be considered criminally negligent.

 

Was he guilty of some serious crimes? Probably.
Was he guilty of this murder? Perhaps.
Was he guilty beyond reasonable doubt? I don't think so.

I don't know about the States, but from the sixties until the early nineties corruption was endemic amongst British detectives and one of the most notorious examples was the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad. Some of them were decent men, others were of the opinion that a criminal was a criminal and if they needed to fabricate evidence to ensure a conviction, so be it. The suspect was guilty, if not of the crime he was being charged with then with something else, so may as well make sure he's locked up. Reuben Carter would have known all about that.

 

Another misleading part of the movie was making it seem like Carter got robbed against Giardello. Joey won the fight fair and square. The decision wasn't particularly close. But, why bother with facts when they get in the way of misguided sympathy for the protagonist?

 

Aye, I believe Joey / his family sued over that lol.

 

Giardello is a bit of an overlooked fighter imo.. he beat Dick Tiger, Tiger Jones & Billy Graham all multiple times .. & probably deserved better than a draw against Fullmer too.. just wasn't consistent enough

 

Hi Buddy.
Overlooked fighter indeed, that said, it puts Downes in a good light in that he beat Joey on points, and Giardello went on to post wins over, Dupas, Hank, Tiger, and Carter, plus a fading Robinson.
stay safe Lonsdale81, chat soon.
Mike.

 

Was just thinking about Downes.. beat Paul Pender too & went very close to a world title at LHW, troubling Willie Pastrano in 64 before suffering an 11th round stoppage.. in fact his win over Fullmer aged pretty well also..

 

Hi Buddy.
Have met and spoken to him on many occasions at various boxing events or functions, he was a quite a character, and had many anecdotes and tales of his career, he said that the beating and stoppage administered by Tiger, paled as to the beating Spider Webb dished out to him many years later, he rated Webb as a smart boxer and a very accurate and hurtful puncher, and the aforementioned hiding he got, left him bedridden for days,and weeks before he felt able to contemplate training again, and again reiterated that he did not beat Robinson, just the ghost, he was a very modest, and unassuming man, that belied his public persona, not one of our greats, but a fighter who achieved plenty without being the most skillful, as he would always admit.
stay safe buddy, chat soon.
Mike.