Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Falsely Accused of Murder - The Hurricane Carter story

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

This is the story of Rubin Hurricane Carter, the man who was falsely convicted of murdering several bystanders in a bar.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. So this famous professional boxer is minding his own business and he suddenly gets arrested and goes to prison for life. And he didn't even do anything wrong. Let me explain. Now the guy, let's call him Hurricane. He's a middleweight boxer and he regularly fights at Madison Square Garden. And bro's got a decent record and he eventually becomes known as the Hurricane. And one night, Hurricane, he's out on the town and he sees his friend and sparring partner.

This guy, John Artist, and they go to a nearby bar called The Night Spot, and they have some drinks, and they have a good time or whatever, and they leave, and they're driving home. Meanwhile, about a half a mile away, two other men go into a different bar, called the Lafayette Bar and Grill. And at that bar, these two men suddenly pull out Pugh's, and they just start blasting, blam, blam! And the customers inside, they all scream, and they freak out,

and blam, a bullet hits a customer. And then blam, another one, and then blam, another one! And then blam, the bartender gets shot. And then the two gunmen, they run. And they hop into their white Chevrolet, and they flee. And unfortunately, two of those customers and the bartender end up unalived. And another customer ends up in the hospital. Now, during all this chaos, there are two shady-ass dudes hanging around the bar.

These two guys, Alfred and Arthur. And Alfred and Arthur, they see everyone panicking and not paying attention. so they go over to the register in the bar and they steal a bunch of cash from it. Like I said, they're shady-ass dudes. So then police show up, and they talk to all the witnesses, including Alfred and Arthur,

and they get descriptions of what the two shooters look like, thin black men around 5-11 driving a white Chevrolet. So police search the area, and they can't find a white Chevrolet, but they do find a white dodge. So they pull over that white dodge And in that Dodge happens to be Hurricane and John Artis. Now, Hurricane isn't thin and he's not 5-Eleven,

so he and John Artis don't match the description of the men who shot up the bar. Regardless, police make them go into the bar, and the witnesses there are like, nah, it ain't them. But police aren't done. They then drag Hurricane and John Artis to the local hospital, and one of the bar customers is there, the one who got shot, the one who got injured, and he's in critical condition. And police ask him if Hurricane and John Artis are the men who shot up the bar, and even he is like,

Nah, bro, those aren't the guys who shot me. So police have no other choice. They have to let Hurricane and John Artists go, and they all just move on with their lives. Until, several months later, police are still working on the case, and they turn to Alfred and Arthur to help them out. Now, allegedly, they offer them some things. Like they offer them early parole from their previous sentences, they offered to overlook the fact that they took money out of the register that night, and most importantly, they offered them a $12,000 reward

if they will identify Hurricane and John Artis as the gunman. And boy, that money seems to jog their memory. Like all of a sudden, Arthur and Alfred are 100% certain that Hurricane and John Artis were the gunmen, and they identify them. It's funny how $12,000 can improve your memory. memory like that. Anyway, that positive ID is all the police need. And bam, they arrest Hurricane. And then bam, they arrest John Artis. And eventually the two men go to trial.

Now, if you're wondering why the police are so convinced that Hurricane and John Artis did it and why they're so gung-ho to convict them, there's this whole racial component to the story that I'm not really qualified to talk about in depth. But just keep in mind that all of this is happening in the 1960s during the civil rights era. And things were, let's just say, a lot more racist back then. So these two guys don't stand a chance. Like white cops, white jury, white witnesses. I mean, what do you think's going to happen?

Anyway, in court, Arthur and Alfred, they get on the stand and they testify against them. And of course, Hurricane and John Artis are both found guilty as fuck. And John Artis gets sentenced to 15 years to life, while Hurricane, he gets sentenced to 30 years to life. But this story isn't over because once hurricanes in prison, he starts to use all his spare time wisely. He starts reading law books and typing up legal briefs and doing everything he can because bro wants a retrial real bad. He wants to get out and he is not giving up until he does. So about seven years go by and he's still in prison. And then finally things start to look up a little. The New Jersey public defender, office and the New York Times both discover and report that Alfred and Arthur had been pressured

by police and bribed into giving false testimony on the stand. Also, while he's in prison, Hurricane takes the time to write his autobiography and it gets published. So now people are reading his story and they start to side with him. And this renews interest in the case and it brings a bunch of attention to what happened to him. And suddenly, celebrities and civil rights activists, they start paying attention. And apparently Bob Dylan reads the book, and he's so moved by it that he writes a song about it called Hurricane, and it becomes a top 40 hit. Even Muhammad Ali gets involved, and he ends up leading a protest march on Hurricane's behalf. So dude is really getting a lot of support out here. And then, finally, his appeal reaches the new jurisdiction.

Supreme Court and they look at the case and they overturn the guilty conviction and grant them a retrial. And Hurricane and John Artists are let out of prison on bail while they wait for this new trial. Nine months later, the new trial happens and Alfred's shady ass gets back on the stand and he testifies again against Hurricane and John Artis and he again identifies them as the gunmen. And not only that, because of the time period and because racial tensions are so high, the prosecuting attorneys argue that Hurricane and John Artists had unalive those people in the bar because those people were white. And that this murder plot was all some sort of black power revenge killing on white people. It's absurd. But as ridiculous as that sounds, the jury believes it.

Like, oh yeah, that totally makes sense. It's like a reverse racism thing. So then, sadly, Hurricane and John Artis are found guilty as fuck once again. And after nine months of being out on bail, the two go back to prison again for life. And so it looks like Hurricane is just going to have to sit in prison and continue serving his life sentence. Until again. Nine years later, the case finally gets in front of federal court. Hurricanes attorneys had filed an appeal. And the court, they look at this case and they look at the prosecution's argument that this was all some kind of black power revenge murder against white people.

And they're like, oh, well, this is bullshit. And they find that the prosecution had actually interfered with the case by coming up with this absurd theory with no evidence behind it. So then, 19 years after Hurricane's original conviction, the man is finally released for. prison and John Artis had actually gotten out a little bit before this. Now the cool thing is Hurricane he actually goes on to become an advocate for people who've been wrongly convicted like he was. He even sets up an organization called Innocence International to help people which John Artist joins as well. So good for them and by the way here's what Hurricane looks like in real life.