Former Boxer Calls for Abolition of Death Penalty

CHICAGO — Former boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter came down from Canada on Friday to tell Americans that it’s time to abolish the death penalty.

Carter, who spent nearly 20 years in a New Jersey prison after his conviction for three murders, spoke before more than 700 people during a panel discussion at the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty.

“I am not pleased to be here under these circumstances. If it hadn’t been for a quaint Latin phrase, habeas corpus, I would have been someplace else--due to a prior commitment,” Carter said to laughter, referring to the legal principle that allowed him to be freed.

In 1985, the former middleweight boxer was released from Rahway State Prison. U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin ruled Carter was denied his civil rights by prosecutors during trials in 1967 and 1976. The judge said the conviction was tainted by racial bias and the withholding of information from the defense.

Carter, now a Canadian citizen, gained international fame with Bob Dylan’s song “Hurricane,” which helped him win his freedom.

“This conference is a wake-up call for everybody,” said Carter, who now lives in Toronto, where he is a writer, teacher and head of the Assn. in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted.

Carter urged the crowd in Northwestern University’s law school auditorium to fight recent efforts to erode the appeal process for those convicted. More than 30 men and women in the audience were former inmates who had been spared from death row.

“Wrongs can be righted. Our presence here today is living proof of that,” Carter said.