Rubin Carter

In 1966, Carter, and his co-accuser, John Artis, were arrested for a triple homicide which was committed at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey. Shortly after the killings at 2:30 am, a car which contained Carter, Artis, and a third acquaintance was stopped by police outside the bar while its occupants were on their way home from a nearby nightclub. They were allowed to go on their way, but after dropping off the third man, Carter and Artis were stopped while they were passing the bar a second time 45 minutes later, and both of them were arrested.

Carter and Artis were interrogated for 17 hours, released, then re-arrested weeks later. In 1967, they were convicted of all three murders, and given life sentences, served in Rahway State Prison; a retrial in 1976 upheld their sentences, but it was overturned in 1985. Prosecutors attempted to try the case a third time but their attempt was rejected by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

He later admitted to a troubled relationship with his father, a strict disciplinarian; at the age of eleven, he was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault, having stabbed a man, who he claimed had tried to sexually assault him. Carter escaped from the reformatory in 1954 and joined the United States Army. few months after completing infantry basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was sent to West Germany. While in Germany, Carter began to box for the Army. He was later discharged in 1956 as unfit for service, after four courts-martial. ^] Shortly after his discharge, he returned home to New Jersey, was convicted of two muggings and sent to prison.