Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Untold Story of the Freeing of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

Janet McCreadie, formerly the editor of the Pelham Herald, is currently
a freelance editor and writer.

In 1966 an all-white jury found middleweight boxing contender Rubin
“Hurricane” Carter guilty of the murder of three whites in a New
Jersey Bar. Carter became a cause célиbre in the mid-1970s, but
despite all support from both sides of the border he was found guilty a
second time and given the same triple-life sentence. This book
chronicles the fight to secure Carter’s eventual freedom. The authors
have produced a compelling narrative. (Swinton became personally
involved in the case, writing some of the factual portions of the briefs
that were presented to the American courts, effecting Carter’s
ultimate release.) The American legal system, the authors suggest, is
filled with injustices and inequities. Their extensive research on this
case clearly demonstrates that Carter’s convictions were predicated on
an appeal to racism rather than reason, and to concealment rather than
disclosure. It took 22 years to free Carter from a system that
incarcerated him for crimes he did not commit. Spellbinding is just one
of the superlatives that can be used to describe the account of his
ordeal.