Rubin Carter Analysis

On July 17th, 1966, Rubin Carter, a notable professional boxer at the time, visited the Night Spot, a tavern in Paterson, New Jersey, a decision he would later regret. A half-mile away from the Night Spot in which Rubin was located, around 2:30 a.m., two armed black men entered the Lafayette Grill and murdered two white men and a white woman. Back at the Night Spot, Rubin offered to take an acquaintance home, a man named John Artis. On the way, Rubin and John were pulled over. According to the police, Rubin’s white dodge sedan resembled the car that the murderers used. Neither Rubin nor John matched the description of the murderers except for the fact that they were both black. Rubin and John were taken in to the police station where they

“No matter what happens to you, you are constantly put under this eye of distrust that you can never shake. I walked into a supermarket in town, and a lady picked up her child. The little girl said, ‘That’s the man who was on TV, Mommy.’ She rushed over and grabbed her child and said, ‘Don’t go near him.’ I just left my stuff and walked out. It never, ever ends. It never ends. It never ends. It never will be ended.” This quote is from Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, a man who had been wrongfully convicted for the rape and murder of a nine year old girl. Bloodsworth was imprisoned for nine years, two of which he spent on death row, before he was acquitted. After his time spent in prison, Bloodsworth found himself with a severe psychological illness. The only problem was, there was no help that the state gave him. A majority of states have no statutory compensation scheme in place, and the wrongfully convicted in those states will bear a tougher burden to overcome their mental health problems upon release as there are few alternative routes to receiving compensation (Scott, 2010). Leslie Scott explains this lack of compensation as a “slap in the face”. In all actuality, that is exactly what it is. According to Scott, “The wrongfully convicted suffer many forms of psychological trauma resulting from their imprisonment and from the struggles inherently incident to rebuilding their lives after exoneration.”

According to the Australian Law Reform Commission, “A match between the crime scene profile and a defendant’s profile does not prove that the defendant committed the particular offence.” This error however is close to always due to human error. Also according to the Australian Law Reform Commission, “It has been suggested that sample mishandling, mislabelling or contamination is more likely to compromise a DNA analysis than an error in the analysis. Contamination may occur at any stage of the collection, transport or analysis of a DNA sample.” This form of error can be easily prevented by better training the professionals. An actual error in the analysis is possible but highly unlikely. When it comes to paying money to the wrongly convicted, there are already many plans to pay these people. The Innocence Project is just one of the organizations that raise money in order to compensate the victims, and they have been doing so for twenty-five years and counting. The federal government, thirty-two of the fifty states, and even the District of Columbia already also have compensation statutes to some degree. All fifty of the states need to develop compensation statutes in order to aid the victims and make a real