I was suffering from severe insomnia last night and went on a random trawl of the internet.
Started reading some of the stuff on the Rubin Carter case which is the subject of Dillons song & the subsequent film starring Denzel.
Its not as clear cut a case as the film would leave you to believe.
First of all Carter had a serious background of criminal behaviour.
The jury wasn’t all white in either of the cases.
Carter wasn’t pulled over randomly or malicously by Police, they were looking for a car which matched the exact description of the one seen fleeing the seen by several witnesses.
The found a gun in the car, which matched the murder weapon, which Carter claims was planted.
Carters first conviction was declared a mistrial after it the eye witnesses recanted their identification of him. The recantations were discredited at the second trial after it emerged that Bello may have been “encouraged” by Carters defence.
At his second trial a number of his alibi’s declared they were coerced into giving evidence and that Carter was not with them at the time as claimed.
He was convicted again the second time.
The second conviction was overturned on the grounds that it “predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure,”
He was never declared innocent, the prosecutrors just felt they couldn’t proceed with a third trial so long after the original incident.
The bit in the song about “what did you bring him in here for, he ain’t the guy” apparently never happened either. The witness said he couldn’t tell one way or another.
Saying all that there were some very improper police practices such as the gun that was found not being logged for 5 days after. So you would have to wonder.
Bello was obviously trying to save his own skin aswell as he was (at best) in the process of commiting a burgulary at the time.
Not saying he did it or anything but very interesting non the less.
Also he was on the decline as a boxer at the time and it is unlikely he ever would have got to be world number one.