And That’s the Story of Hurricane

(Props to Peter)

Or

The Calm After the Storm

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who was made a star of song and screen by the corrupt prosecutors of the New Jersey criminal justice system, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 76. The one-time promising prizefighter was convicted in 1967 and again in 1976 of shooting 3 people in a tavern in 1966, with both verdicts being overturned on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct after Carter spent a mere 19 years in prison before recanting witnesses and new evidence brought a slow of lily-livered celebrities out of the woodwork whining about racism and police brutality. That support disappeared after Carter was charged with beating a woman unconscious while appealing his second conviction. Bob Dylan hit the Top 40 in 1976 with Hurricane and Denzel Washington earned an Academy Award for his portrayal of Carter in the simplistic and inaccurate 1999 movie that was really just a victory lap as the real Carter had been out of prison for almost 15 years.