Carter talks to police outside the Lafayette Grill after the murders

The murder scene
at the Lafayette Grill

Roy Holloway's murder by
Frank Conforti was over a financial dispute.

After Leroy Holloway's murder, Carter is out on the town and he runs into his friend Neil Morrison, who he accuses of having stolen guns from him a year before. They go to the apartment of Annabelle Chandler around midnight. Carter says he took Morrison there because Chandler had earlier told Carter that Morrison had stolen the guns. He wanted to confront Morrison with Chandler's claim.

In Carter's first interview with Det. DeSimone a few hours after the murders, Carter doesn't mention the trip to Annabelle Chandler's. Instead, he says he had a midnight business meeting at the Club La Petit.

In 1985, Judge Lee Sarokin rules that the racial revenge motive is "repugnant" and sets Carter free. He ruled that the prosecutors appealed to "racism rather than reason" and that the prosecutors had failed to provide any evidence that Carter and Artis were interested in the Holloway murder or felt angry about it.

• The killers didn't say anything, just started shooting.
  
  
• The killers didn't rob the bar or take Mrs. Tanis' purse.
  
  
• The victims were all working class people -- not involved in organized crime.

The Hawkins Report

In 1974, the governor of New Jersey asked a politician, Eldridge Hawkins, to investigate the Lafayette Grill murders. In this section of his report, Hawkins summarizes the racial revenge motive:

"[O]n June 16, 1966 at 8:10 p.m., there was a homicide of a Roy Holloway (a Black man) at the Waltz Inn in Paterson, New Jersey. The suspect was a Frank J. Conforti (a White man) who had been immediately apprehended.... It was strongly suspected by many (police and persons residing in Paterson) that the [Lafayette Grill] triple slaying was committed in retribution for the earlier homicide."

The Hawkins report traced the whereabouts and motives of some friends of Carter's -- especially Ed Rawls, Holloway's stepson. Charges were never brought against Rawls for lack of evidence, but police suspected he might have been involved. They believe that the murder weapons were stashed at Rawls' apartment right after the murder. (see Cal Deal's site)

Rawls and Carter were seen together that evening

"More pertinent is what Eddie Rawls, Holloway’s stepson, did after hearing about the murder [of Leroy Holloway]. Rawls went to police headquarters where an officer told him not to worry. Rawls, according to grand jury and trial testimony, shouted out a warning that if the police didn't handle the case properly, he would take matters into his own hands. Later that evening, Rawls went to the Nite Spot where he worked as a bartender. The Nite Spot was such a favorite hangout for Carter that the bar had a special "champ's corner" section for the boxer. Artis also frequented the bar and was there that evening. According to trial testimony, Carter was at the Nite Spot when Rawls arrived with the news of his stepfather's slaying. Prosecutors insist that Carter then began talking about wanting to locate guns that had been stolen from him a year earlier. Carter denies this, but in his grand jury testimony he admitted that there was talk in the bar about [revenge], some sort of "a shaking" in retaliation for Holloway's murder.

-- from the full-length article,
"The Hurricane Hoax"

The Prosecution

felt it was reasonable, not racist, for them to theorize that racial revenge was the motive:

"It is not surprising that the investigation of the Lafayette Grill murders almost immediately looked toward a connection with the murder of Mr. Holloway. Two bartenders were murdered. Each man was killed by a single blast from a shotgun fired at close range. The murders occurred in Paterson, several hours apart while the victims were tending bar at taverns down the street from each other. Neither murder involved a robbery. While there was considerable evidence beyond this basic information to link these murders, just these bare facts raise a natural projection that there is a connection between the killings and a competent investigation should look in that direction."

The movie

The movie doesn't mention the slaying of the black bartender at all. And it disposes of the "racial revenge" motive by bringing on a black character to say, no, the white bartender wasn't racist at all. "So much for the racial revenge motive," says one of Carter's supporters, aka The Canadians. The truth is that Jim Oliver, the murdered white bartender, was known to be a bigot and had refused to serve black people in the past.

The newspaper

The first newspaper article published after the Lafayette Grill murders mentions the earlier slaying of Roy Holloway and speculated that the murders could be connected.

Defense hypocrisy

The defense contended that it was outrageous for the prosecution to theorize that Rubin Carter would kill four white people to avenge the slaying of a black man. This was, they argued, tantamount to saying that black people were racists and tended to seek revenge in this fashion. Judge Lee Sarokin agreed with them and overturned Carter and Artis' second conviction.

However, the defense, Carter and Carter's supporters have always argued over the years that the reason the police and the jury went after Carter in the first place is because he is black and they were white. Defense arguments have relied heavily on the assumption of racism on the part of all whites involved in the Lafayette Grill investigation and trials.

Columnist Paul Mulshine writes:

"After almost two decades of judge-shopping, Carter's defense team finally had the good fortune to come up before federal Judge Lee Sarokin, the most criminal-friendly judge in the nation. Sarokin ordered a new trial on the grounds that the prosecution should not have been permitted to argue that racial revenge was the motive.

'For the state to contend that an accused has the motive to commit murder solely because of his membership in a racial group is an argument which should never be permitted to sway a jury or provide the basis of a conviction,' Sarokin wrote.

By that standard, of course, the prosecution in the Texas dragging death of James Byrd Jr. would have had to find some other motive than the racism that so clearly led to the actions of the three killers."

"I wanted to be the Administrator of Justice, the Revealer of Truth, the Inflicter of All Retribution. I gloried in these thoughts."

-- Rubin "Hurricane" Carter speaks of his hatred for the justice system in The 16th Round, p 139

Carter under arrest for assault in 1965, the year before the murders

John Artis -- along for the ride

The evidence against
Carter and Artis

Det. Vince DeSimone

Carter's violent nature

At the first trial, the prosecution wanted to introduce an interview of Carter published in the Saturday Evening Post, which featured a lot of violent talk from Carter. At the second trial, the prosecution wanted to introduce Carter's autobiography, The 16th Round, which also features many examples of hate-filled speech. Both judges denied the request, ruling that the material was prejudicial to Carter.

Ironically, Judge Lee Sarokin, in reviewing the case, concluded that the prosecution provided "no proof that Carter and Artis were black militants with an inclination to kill whites, nor that they had even the slightest hostility toward whites, only that Carter had heard there was unrest [that night] and heard there was talk of a possible disturbance."

Carter's failing career

Carter was not a contender for the middleweight championship at the time of his arrest. A prison psychologist predicted in 1957, before Carter got out of prison for mugging, that Carter would be back:

"Because [Carter] is still young, the ability to ventilate his hostility through the socially acceptable ring endeavors might forestall future assaultive behaviors, although this is looked upon dubiously and only as a temporary thing. When the time arrives that Rubin's ring aspirations do not exist, he will become more aggressive and it is predicted that a repetition of the present involvement [on the wrong side of the law] will occur."

Carter didn't always act in his own best interests. He had a fearsome temper and he was impulsive.

"Carter remained in Trenton State (for the muggings) for four years... The length of his prison time was due in large measure to his behavior while in prison. (Some defendants receiving similar sentences can expect to leave the prison after two years if they make no trouble.) Carter, however, was continually clashing with the prison authorities...

-- Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and the
American Justice System, by Paul Wice

Carter's drinking problems impaired his career. He was charged with assault and disorderly conduct.

Carter's biographer

James Hirsch, writes that the m.o. didn't fit Carter -- Carter would beat a man to death with his fists, not shoot him. On the other hand, Carter collected guns, shotguns and rifles and carried a gun, hidden under his sportsjacket.

Det. Vincent DeSimone and Prosecutor Burrell Humphries

were sure that Carter and Artis were the murderers. They was still searching for the murder weapons ten years after the murders were committed. Before the second trial, DeSimone had Roy Holloway's casket dug up to see if the weapons had been hidden there. (They weren't). If DeSimone had framed Carter, it seems unlikely that he would still be looking for weapons -- if he knew Carter was innocent, why would he be searching for the weapons, and in such a macabre place?