IBDP History Internal Assessment
Section A: Plan of Investigation
On
the night of June 17, 1966, four adults were the victims of a brutal
shooting in a bar and grill located in New Jersey. Immediately arrested
for the crime was former top ranked boxer Rubin Carter. Since then
questions have been raised as to whether or not he was framed by an
inherently racist judicial system, questions which were influenced to a
large extent by Bob Dylan's 1975 song “Hurricane” which in turn later
gave its title to the Oscar-nominated motion picture starring Denzel
Washington.
This
investigation seeks to determine the validity of this claim and
ascertain to what extent, if any, they were misrepresented. The two main
sources used are Rubin’s book, “the 16th round” and witness, Patty
Valentine’s key prosecuting statement. Secondary sources such as
newspaper articles, police reports and prosecutor briefs will also help
to gain insight into the trial, and the reasons behind Rubin’s
prosecution.
(Plan of Investigation – 151 words)
Section B: Summary of evidence
On
June 17, 1966, at 2:30 a.m. police reports reveal that two
African-American males entered the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson,
New Jersey and began shooting what was later revealed to be a shotgun.
Jim Oliver, bartender at the grill, and customer Fred Nauyoks, were
both killed instantly by the shotgun. Hazel Tanis, the only female
present was hit in numerous parts of her body, and died less than a
month after. Willie Marins was the only one of the four to survive the
shootings. Though he was shot in the head, he survived whilst losing
sight of one of his eyes.
Alfred
Bello was near the bar at the time and heard the shots. He was the
first on the scene, and called police to report the scene. He later
confessed that he had been planning to commit a robbery, but was not
convicted for any felony. A resident on the second floor of the bar and
grill, Patty Valentine, said she looked out of her window after the
sound of gun-fire and saw two “black men” leaving the scene in a white
car heading west. A neighbour of Valentine, Ronald Ruggiero, also heard
the shots, and upon looking out of his window, saw Bello running for a
telephone. He then saw two African-American males fleeing the scene in
a white car while also hearing the tires of the car screech.
Rubin
Carter’s car was stopped by police because it matched the description
given to police by the two witnesses, and both he and fellow passenger
John Artis were taken to the crime scene. Little physical evidence was
taken from either man, such as fingerprints, and the eyewitnesses could
not identify Carter or Artis as the shooters. The police then took
both men to the hospital to be viewed by the seriously wounded Marins,
who stated: "I can't tell. I don't know." Despite this, the police did
find a live .32 caliber pistol bullet and a 12-gauge shotgun shell
which were the same types as used in the shootings. Because of these
findings, Carter and Artis were taken to the local police station to be
questioned. At the time, they were the only two suspects of the
shootings.
Both
men were given no choice but to be polygraph tested. The examiner,
John J. McGuire, stated the following conclusion about Carter
specifically: "After a careful analysis of the polygraph record of this
subject, it is the opinion of the examiner that this subject was
attempting deception to all the pertinent questions and was involved in
this crime. After the examination and confronted with the examiner's
opinion the subject denied any participation in the crime."
Despite appeals later that year, both Carter and Artis were convicted of murder and were sentenced to life in prison.
(Summary of Evidence – 495 words)
Section C: Evaluation of Sources
The 16th Round (1974)
Written
by Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and published first in 1974 in Canada, and
is now subsequently out of print. Carter had had no education beyond
high school and yet produced a literary work that, to critics, is far
beyond the capabilities of a high-school graduate. like it! Carter was,
however, reported to have studied during his years in prison. The book
was Carter’s way of pleading to the public and showcasing his life as
the man convicted for a crime he did not commit. Carter hoped that this
would inspire people to plead on his behalf, for which it was
successful. The lively writing style and the shocking, powerful account
of his life give somewhat of a ‘true’ read to the audience. Certain
evidence within police reports and trial transcripts are omitted and
claimed events do not hold up to police and witness reports. At the age
of 17, Carter escaped from a juvenile reformatory because, as the book
would state, “Mr. Wallace,”: “He was the reason I once had to suffer
six agonizing months of solitary confinement in a six-foot-tall,
three-foot-wide box that almost drove me insane.” From the 16th round,
this incident is blamed on Mr. Wallace and also the fact that Carter had
severely beaten Mr. Wallace a year before when Carter saw Wallace
molesting a young inmate. Because of this, Rubin escaped the reformatory
as Mr. Wallace had destroyed his chances of parole. However, in an
interview with Sports Illustrated in 1963, Carter stated, “When I got to
be 17 I started to realize women. When I first went [to the juvenile
reformatory] I didn’t care about women. What did I know? Then I started
noticing dancing, clothes, just life. It got pretty dreary. So I
escaped.” Also, in an interview with the Saturday Evening Post, Rubin
stated that “I just getting into more trouble at Jamesburg, and they
kept adding time... I was good for a whole six months. I had thirty days
to go when I got a disciplinary report and I appeared before the
Board. They were talking about sending me to Annadale Reformatory... I
knocked out a window and went home.”
(The 16th Round, 1974 – 388 words)
Patty Valentine’s testimony transcript to Grand Jury (1966)
The
transcript is from the first trial of Rubin Carter in 1966, and is
from a secret Grand jury testimony which neared the end of the trial.
Mrs. Valentine was the first to call the police after finding Marins
and Hazel, both shot, in the Lafayette Grill. Valentine later
identified Carter’s car as the car used in the crime. Valentine was the
key prosecution witness in the 1966 trial, . reporting having seen
both the killers and their getaway car at around 2:30 A.M, June 17th
from her apartment window above the Grill. In the position to see two
men running from the scene, and entering a car which she later
identified, her account of is very detailed but consistent as more than
one prosecutor questioned even the most precise details of her
account. Valentine, however, was wrong in the car description as she
described the getaway car as a different car to that of Carter’s, and
later described this fault as merely a lack of automobile knowledge on
her part.
(Patty Valentine’s testimony transcript to Grand Jury,1966 – 194 words)
(Evaluation of Sources – 590 words)
Section D: Analysis
The
evidence that is from police reports logically goes against Carter’s
alibi. Carter was not randomly pulled over in his car as shown in both
the motion picture and Carter’s book, the 16th round. Police evidence
shows that Carter was pulled over, and then pulled over again 30 minutes
later when a more detailed description of the getaway car was given
which matched his car. Some find it hard to trust anything that is
written in Carter’s book because of the fact that Carter changes events
beginning from his childhood. Similar to the book, the motion picture
follows the same path. One key example of this is Marins, the man who
was have blinded by the shootings. Police reports show that the man was
not in the state to say anything when Carter and Artis were brought to
the hospital. However, in both the movie and the book, Marins says “no,
that’s not the guy”. On the other hand, Valentine, was considered by
some as ‘prejudiced against the African race’. During Carter’s third
trial in 1986, civil rights movements, especially those headed by
African-American individuals, focused on the racist judicial system that
locked Carter and Artis up. Following the 1966 trials, in 1986 instead
of an all-white jury similar to the one that first convicted Carter, A
jury of 5five Caucasian and 5 five African Americans were present.
This ensured that a verdict would be fair, and pertain solely to the
evidence presented and not racial judgment. Interestingly enough,
though racism is a commonly used excuse for Carters incarceration, it
only originated in his book, the 16th Round. Before the publishing of
that book, Carter was generally accepted as having killed the men and
woman in the bar and grill. If we take a quick look into the summary of
evidence used against carter, we can see that Carter would be seen as
guilty at the time. Two witnesses identified Carter’s car, live
ammunition that matched that used at the crime scene was found, Carter
failed the polygraph test given to him the morning of the crime, Hazel
Tanis’ police-aided sketch matched Artis’ profile, minutes before the
murders Carter was only 1320 feet away in another bar and finally, and
finally, Marins told his brother that Carter was the one, despite the
fact that he said he didn’t know the night of the shootings. With this
evidence in hand, it is almost impossible not to assume that Carter was
the killer. This is why today, many believe that Carter was not
framed, but convicted of a crime he did not commit.
Carter’s
book was misleading in some areas, and because of amount of falsified
facts, it cannot be trusted as as evidence. On the other hand, Mrs.
Valentine’s confession was much more reliable. Mrs. Valentine did not
know Rubin Carter, and according to relatives, had no knowledge of the
boxer other than his name. Her confession was always constant even
after several questioning sessions with Rubin’s highly paid lawyers.
Valentine gained nothing from the conviction of Carter except the odd
death threat. Because of this, one is more likely to trust to
consistency of Mrs. Valentine over the inconsistency of Carter.
(Analysis – 562 words)
Section E: Conclusion
To
this day, the real killers of that night in the Lafayette Grill have
not been caught. Basing my conclusion solely on the evidence presented,
and bound by no socio-political issues, it can be concluded that Carter
was guilty of the crime. It seemed that at the time, Carter was able
to take advantage of a small loop-hole in the American judicial system:
racism as an excuse for his prosecution. Carter’s use of an American
judicial system fuelled by racism is arguably what brought him back as a
free man. He was convicted at a time when African-Americans all over
the country were demanding more rights, and Carter’s story was seen as
another time where a racial judicial system would use the African
population as scapegoats. Aside from this, it is quite clear that Bob
Dylan’s “Hurricane”, and the motion picture “The Hurricane” sway from
the truth. Carter did have evidence against him, such as bullets in his
car that matched those used at the crime scene, and a polygraph tests
that swayed in the favour of the Paterson Police. The first trial of
Carter was home to an all-white jury, and with xenophobia plaguing the
United States at the time, racism was definitely an issue in Carter’s
trial. Though Carter did serve 20 years in a maximum security prison for
a crime that the evidence says he committed, he did finally gain
freedom. This time, Carter would not be in the headlines as the
Hurricane, but simply as Rubin Carter.
(Conclusion – 235 words)
Bibliography:
Books used:
• James S. Hirsch, Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000)
• James S. Hirsch, Hurricane: The Life of Rubin Carter, Fighter (Fourth Estate, 2001)
• Jeremy Roberts, Bob Dylan: Voice of a Generation (Twenty-First Century Books, 2005)
• Ken Alexander & Avis Glaze, Towards freedom: the African-Canadian experience (University of Virginia
• Digitized Feb 6, 2008)
• Paul B. Wice, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and the American Justice System (Rutgers University Press, 2000)
• Rubin Carter, The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender To #45472 (Penguin Global, may 1991)
•
Sam Chaiton &Terence Swinton, Lazarus and the Hurricane: The
Freeing of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (St. Martin's Griffin, 2000)
Other sources used:
• Patterson Police Department, ‘Arrest of Carter and Artis, 17 September 1966’ Paterson Arrest Report Archive.
• Patterson newspaper excerpts
