Thanks
to two Northwestern University professors, a substantial number
of men have been released from death row in Illinois because
they were wrongfully convicted. In The Hurricane,
director Norman Jewison brings to the screen the book Lazarus
and the Hurricane: The Untold Story of the Freeing of Rubin
"Hurricane" Carter (1991), which is based on a true story
about a Black boxer who was given a life sentence for a triple
murder that he did not commit. Hurricane (played by Denzil
Washington) is the former world's welterweight champion boxer
who was deliberately framed for the murder of three white
men on June 17, 1966. When the film begins, Hurricane is at
the apex of his boxing career in 1963. Next, we find him in
prison, the first ninety days of which are in the hole because
he protests that wearing prison clothes would be an admission
of guilt. We next view a reenactment of the crime scene as
well as a police officer (played by Dan Hedaya) tampering
with evidence to frame Hurricane. As the biography unfolds,
we learn that the same police officer arranged to send him
to reform school at the age of 11 for a knifing in self-defense;
after he escapes and joins the army, the same police officer
sends him back to prison when he returned from military service
to serve the remaining years of his juvenile detention, though
as an adult. After his murder conviction, we view how Hurricane
refuses to conform to prison rules, including sleeping during
the day, typewriting his biography at night, and eating canned
rather than prison food. After a retrial and even an appeal
to the New Jersey Supreme Court because his conviction was
based on trumped-up evidence, both unsuccessful, Hurricane
then remains resigned to a life in prison. Rather than a simple
biography, however, the film focuses on a teenage boy from
Brooklyn named Lesra "Lazarus" Martin (played by Vicellous
Reon Shannon), who was adopted by three adults in Canada because
they were so impressed with his spirit that they volunteered
to teach him how to read so that he could achieve his ambition
of going to college. At an auction of discarded books from
the Toronto Public Library, Lesra buys his first book for
25 cents -- Hurricane's autobiography The Sixteenth Round:
From Number 1 Contender to #45472 (1974). Moved by the
book, Lesra writes and then visits Hurricane and decides to
do whatever he can to free him, and soon he persuades his
adopted family to join in the quest. They then move to Paterson,
New Jersey, review the mountain of evidence, reinterview witnesses,
and Hurricane's lawyers present their case of gross racist
prosecutorial misconduct to a federal judge (played by Rod
Steiger), who in turn frees Rubin on November 8, 1985. Titles
at the end indicate that Hurricane, Lesra, and the three Canadians
then went back to Canada (to director Norman Jewison's home
town of Toronto). Lesra indeed finished college and is now
an attorney in Vancouver, and Hurricane founded an organization
to investigate those who are wrongfully convicted. However,
no person has ever been charged for the murders for which
Hurricane was wrongfully convicted. As a remarkable story
about justice denied and then redeemed almost miraculously,
the Political Film Society has nominated The Hurricane
for three awards for the year 2000 -- as an exposé and as
a film raising consciousness of the need for greater democracy
and for improved human rights. MH
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