Denzel Washington & "Hurricane" Fri, 4 Feb 2000 01:48:01 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 3, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- DENZEL WASHINGTON & "HURRICANE": A KNOCKOUT PERFORMANCE IN A STORY ABOUT INJUSTICE By Monica Moorehead Denzel Washington won the coveted Golden Globe award this year for best performance by a lead actor in a dramatic motion picture. When Washington took to the stage Jan. 23 to accept his well-deserved award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, he had at his side the man he portrayed in the movie "The Hurricane": Rubin Carter. Carter is a former political prisoner who spent over 20 years in Trenton State Prison. Carter and his co-defendant, John Artis, were falsely accused of the 1966 murders of three white men at a bar in Paterson, N.J. They were eventually convicted in a New Jersey state court of these charges. This incident occurred a year before the historic Newark rebellion in 1967 that struck out against racist police brutality, poverty and unemployment. Carter and Artis, victims of a racist police frame-up, were sentenced to three consecutive life terms. Their conviction grew out of a racist conspiracy between the local police authorities and prosecutors. The cops attempted to railroad Carter, a middle-heavyweight fighter on the verge of winning a boxing title, to prison. Artis was driving Carter home when a barrage of white cops stopped them. In 1982, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the convictions by a vote of four to three, with the dissenters stating that the conviction was constitutionally flawed. The conspiracy against Carter began when he was a child. A flashback sequence in the film shows an 11-year-old Carter being sent to juvenile prison for eight years for the "crime" of being African American. Carter eventually escaped from prison to join the military. Upon his return home, he was picked up by the racist cops and sent back to finish his prison sentence. The movie also explores the injustice in the courts. For instance, the jury that found Carter and Artis guilty was all white. The sequences in prison indicated in a sweeping way how Black men were a majority of those incarcerated. The heart and soul of the movie is Washington's powerful portrayal. Washington proves once again why he is among the premier actors of his time. The movie is sympathetic to Carter's plight in many ways. But unless the viewers are familiar with this case and the pivotal role the progressive movement played, they would think that a handful of white people from Canada played the main role gaining Carter his freedom. The film spends a great deal of time on a group of Canadians spearheaded by a young Black man, who was inspired by reading Carter's book "The Sixteenth Round." The film shows these four people moving from Canada to New Jersey to support the efforts of Carter's lawyers to find suppressed evidence that would lead to overturning the conviction. A deep and tender relationship develops between Carter and the young Black man named Lesra Martin, played movingly by Vicellous Shannon. FILM UNDERPLAYS ROLE OF MASS PROTEST During the two-hour movie, there is only a brief glimpse of the many demonstrations that were held supporting Carter's innocence. Due to Carter's notoriety in the ring, his arrest and conviction were cause for much concern and anger, especially in the Black community. Demonstrations were held throughout New Jersey demanding a new and fair trial for Carter. The movie showed some historic clips of marches of thousands of people led by boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, along with actor Ellen Burstyn. Bob Dylan wrote a popular song in support of Carter. On Sept. 7, 1975, "Rubin Hurricane Carter and John Artis Day" was proclaimed in the predominantly Black city of Newark, N.J. that attracted thousands of people at City Hall. Ali told the crowd, "It is not just Hurricane Carter-- hundreds of innocent people are railroaded daily into the jails." On Oct. 31, 1975, thousands of people marched on the state capitol in Trenton, N.J. A delegation met with the governor and presented him with 37, 000 signatures on petitions demanding their immediate release. The movie spends little time on how this mass movement developed. This omission leaves a big political void in the film's overall impact. Just before the final credits the movie mentions how Artis was finally released. In a society such as this one, which preaches individualism, for it instead to show the masses in motion could have made a lasting impression on moviegoers. In 1985, Carter's lawyers--Myron Beldock, Lewis Steel and Leon Friedman--filed a writ of habeas corpus requesting that New Jersey provide credible evidence to the federal courts as to why Carter was being imprisoned. A New Jersey federal court ruled on the writ that Carter was sent to jail not because of the evidence presented but because of racism on the part of the cops and the state courts. NEW LAW PREVENTS SUCCESSFUL APPEALS >From a legal standpoint, Carter might still be languishing in jail were it not for the application of a writ of habeas corpus. Many death-row inmates have depended on such a writ to prove that they were wrongfully convicted. A habeas corpus writ means that state judicial rulings may be challenged on a federal level. Between 1976 and 1999, federal courts ruled that close to 50 percent of these cases were unconstitutional. In 1996, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which changed the rules regarding habeas corpus. In a Jan. 10 editorial, Carter's lawyer Friedman wrote: "The law says a federal judge can only reverse a state court conviction on habeas corpus if it was contrary to federal law or applied in an `unreasonable' way. _ The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ... has ruled this means the state courts must have applied the law in a way that `all reasonable jurists would agree is unreasonable.' ... That standard is almost impossible to meet. ... "Since a federal judge would be loath to call a state judge unreasonable, the Hurricane Carters of tomorrow would not be saved through writs of habeas corpus. ... If federal courts could no longer review their decisions, state judges would have less reason to be careful about constitutionality. Future Rubin Carters would languish in jail." This is a battle that Mumia Abu-Jamal, Shaka Sankofa and other death-row inmates are facing with the support of the movement. The fact that this flawed movie, with a great performance by Washington, was made at all will help bring to the public the horrors endemic to this racist judicial system. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-02.04.00-01:47:52-31379