As you all know, Rubin Carter was convicted of three murders, committed at the Lafayette Grill in 1966. A lot of ink has been spilled on this question, and I am not going to rehash it here. I invite you to give your opinion via the poll, and your reasons if you want to. I offer you three options. You might conclude that the jury that convicted him were right, which would mean that you would find him guilty beyond reasonable doubt. You might think that he was guilty, but that the burden of proof of criminal law had not been met. In that case you could find him guilty on the balance of probability, which woudl mean that a civil case against him could legitimately succeed. If you think that even this burden of proof was not reached, then you must of course find him not guilty.
I haven't studied the case in detail, but if I recall correctly, the prevailing view of those that have, is that he likely was guilty on the balance of probability, but that from a legal perspective he should not have been found as such. I therefore voted for the middle option.
seconded. The movie was a joke. Carter did not beat Giardello. The idea he was framed because he was some feared contender is a lie. Why not frame Ali, Foster, or a whole host of great fighters?
A more poignant question may be how many innocent people were incarcerated based on racial motives without due process. A corollary would be, how many of those where cover-ups for rich and powerful.
I think that his highest Ring Ranking was #3, and that he had slipped to #7 when he went to prison. Of course you can never be sure, but I think that he would most likely have been remembered as another contender that didn't quite make it, had he not gone to prison.
It’s a case of many things can be true: Rubin Carter did not get a fair trial as guaranteed by the constitution of the United States of America. The movie was a joke (which has nothing to do with whether Carter was guilty). Investigators almost certainly planted evidence — a cartridge and a shotgun shell suddenly appeared in evidence and were said to have been found in the rental car in which Carter and two co-defendants were traveling when arrested after no such evidence was originally found. These were the right caliber but did not match the types found at the crime scene that were used in the killing. Prosecutors withheld evidence at every stage of the trial that would have been helpful to the defense. Prosecution witnesses lied on the stands. Deals with witnesses by the prosecution were withheld. One was promised a big reward if he fingered Carter and his chief co-defendant. Witnesses who fingered Carter in the original trial recanted later. In short, they told so many stories that even if one of those stories were true it’s impossible to find them credible. Appeals courts found all of the above. In short, Carter was railroaded. The only thing I think was fairly established at trial was that Carter was in the vicinity, which he never denied. Witnesses corroborated that he was at places he said he was in and around the time of the murders. One of the chief witnesses against him was actually caught by police coming out of the bar where the killings took place after cleaning out the cash register — he testified he was never in the bar. Why he wasn’t the chief suspect is inexplicable. I don’t have an opinion on whether Carter was guilty or not. When someone is convicted on false evidence and false testimony and an appeal to a jury that is based on race rather than evidence and facts, it’s impossible to put aside that they obviously didn’t have enough of a case to fairly convict him.
Pretty much everything in that movie was a total lie they tried to make out he was being hounded by a jealous racist cop but that was all false. I remember one story aswell when Carter was out on bail he beat up a woman who was his bail bondswoman trying to help him raise funds for his defense. He was a thug and not a nice person I've done a little bit of reading on the case I'm quite convinced he was guilty.
On what do you base your belief in his guilt? 1) The movie certainly persuaded a lot of people that Carter was not guilty and the movie was also certainly full of bull****. But that has nothing to do with whether he was actually guilty or not. It is, to me, like concluding George Washington was never president because some movie about him wasn’t accurate. 2) Saying the movie was bull**** (it was) sort of ignores the fact that evidence presented in court — the things upon which he was actually convicted — was planted, and testimony was found to be completely false. How is that less important than a stupid movie? 3) There’s little doubt Rubin was a thug and wasn’t a nice person, but what does him beating up his bondswoman have to do with whether he murdered three people? By this standard, a large percentage of boxers (many of whom have been said to have assaulted people) must also be serial killers. I’m curious what you’ve come across as far as fact and evidence leads you to believe he killed three people on the night in question.
As a Brit, this insight into the role homoerotica plays in the US legal system has led me to perceive it as highly irregular.
