Four months later two small-time criminals named Al Bello and Arthur Bradley claimed they had been outside the Lafayette Bar. After they heard shots, they saw two black men run out, and they ran inside where they saw the dead and wounded sprawled all over the place.
Bello and Bradley had burglarized a building down the street from the bar just before the shooting. Arrested for the burglary, they fingered Carter and Artis and went free. Based on their say-so, the Passaic County prosecutor made his move. On October 14, 1966, Rubin Carter and John Artis were arrested and charged with triple homicide.
Raymond Brown represented Carter at the first trial. He was one of the best criminal lawyers in New Jersey, and I had worked with him at the NAACP. It was clear that Brown believed Carter was innocent. It was equally clear from conversations I had with various people who knew that Brown had had earlier unpleasant experiences with the first trial judge, Samuel Larner—when the latter was also a criminal defense attorney—that his courtroom would be an inhospitable place.
During a time of race riots occurring in New Jersey and all over the country, Carter and Artis had no chance at their trial. Even with all the prosecution’s evidence problems, and without any explanation as to why Carter and Artis would murder complete strangers in a neighborhood bar, they were convicted of the triple murders. Escaping the death penalty, they were sentenced to life.
Years later, after Raab and a public television reporter, Hal Levinson, had obtained sworn recantations from Bello and Bradley, local New Jersey lawyers and the public defender’s office represented Carter and Artis at a hearing before Judge Larner that sought to set aside their guilty verdicts. After taking testimony, Judge Larner rejected the postconviction recantations of Bello and Bradley, but something surprising had emerged at the hearing: a tape recording of Bello’s interrogation by the police. On the tape the chief investigator, Lt. Vincent DeSimone, could be heard telling Bello he would make sure nothing happened to him for breaking into a building on the night of the murders if he testified against Carter and Artis. It was as clear as day. DeSimone told Bello he’d be performing an important service because black people were “strictly for the colored.” Later on the same tape, DeSimone could be heard coaching Bello on how to identify Carter and Artis, as well as the white car.
After Larner’s ruling, Carter said he would never rely on a New Jersey lawyer again. He asked Raab for help, and Raab suggested Myron Beldock, whom he knew from another wrong-man murder case. After speaking to Raab, I reached out to Myron, who assured me he thought the two men were innocent and would welcome my participation.
Then I took the next step, which was to speak to Artis, who was attending Glassboro State College on a daytime prison-release program.
Traveling down to Glassboro, I met with Artis in the college’s student center. We met at the information desk and spent the afternoon together. Dressed casually like the other students, but a little bit older, John looked like the least likely murderer you could imagine. He was tall and lean, with short-cropped black hair, an easy laugh, and a ready smile. What was he doing there, a convicted killer, going from class to class unguarded? I asked him. He told me how he helped some guards escape after a prison uprising. They knew he could not have killed anyone, he said. So they moved him downstate to a minimum-security prison and let him attend Glassboro. A guard picked him up in the morning and drove him there and picked him up at the end of the day and drove him back. They were after Rubin and not him, he added. He felt that if he had gotten out of the car before Royster, he would have been the second man.
Most of the time John and I talked about witnesses who could track his every move the night of the murders, and possible character witnesses. John told me he had never been in trouble, was a star athlete in high school, had always worked afterward, and had many white friends. At the time of his arrest he had been contemplating either joining the army or trying to get an athletic scholarship to college. His thing back then was dancing away the night, and that was what he was doing in a club called the Nite Spot when Rubin, who had a table and knew he was a local athlete, asked John to drive him home. At the end of our conversation I was convinced he was innocent and said I would represent him.
Driving back to New York City, I thought of Tony Maynard, whose freedom I had won two years earlier. The similarities were striking. Tony and John were about the same age when I first met them. Both were tall, lean, and good looking. Both were black, accused of killing whites in hyperpublicized crimes. Both had been fingered by lowlifes. Both were articulate and thoughtful. Both were without funds to counter powerful prosecutors. And, most important, I thought both were innocent after one long afternoon meeting. There were differences, of course. Tony had an ethereal, free-floating quality even when imprisoned. John, although convicted, was “free” when I met him, and was much more down to earth. What was was, and he was making the best of it until somehow the truth would emerge, and he would be free. Until then, however, he would do things their way if that would make life more tolerable. Maynard, on the other hand, much like Rubin Carter, I later learned, wanted things his way, and had no give no matter what the consequences. At least with John, I thought, I would not have to worry about him in prison, and I could just concentrate on getting him out. As with Maynard, I knew a tough struggle lay ahead. The authorities needed a black killer behind bars when the victim was white in a highly publicized crime. The public demanded it. Someone had to pay to calm the fears of white people who lived way too close to the ever-invading and -expanding black masses.
* * *
Myron Beldock and I meshed immediately. Like me, Myron was a sucker for near-hopeless cases. A balding, work-addicted man fighting a middle-age bulge, Myron was the kind of lawyer who followed every strand of evidence to its most obscure conclusion, and that quality garnered the respect of his colleagues and adversaries alike.
Getting to work, first we checked the 1967 trial transcript to follow up on the revelation that DeSimone made Bello and Bradley a promise in return for their testimony.
During that trial Bello had denied that anyone in law enforcement had made him any promises in exchange for his testimony. Contrary to their obligations, the prosecutors never told the defense about DeSimone’s promises, and they didn’t turn over the tape recording as a prior statement of one of their witnesses. The value of the tape should not have escaped Judge Larner, but instead Larner’s opinion justified the prosecutor’s failure to turn it over.
Appeals courts don’t go out of their way to do favors for prisoners who accuse a prosecutor of failing to disclose evidence, especially when it comes to a street crime. Their rulings generally say something to the effect that this or that undisclosed evidence would have been unlikely to change the verdict. But most appeals happen with zero outside interest, so judges need not concern themselves with public oversight. However, when the press is skeptical about the guilt of someone doing hard time, the New York Times runs a front-page story, and famous people start taking an interest, judges sometimes evaluate cases more carefully. Fueling the controversy in this case, Carter had just published a book, The Sixteenth Round, about his life, the trial, and his years in prison. Not since Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land, an acclaimed autobiographical coming-of-age story about life in Harlem during the sixties, had anyone written so powerfully about ghetto life and the struggle to survive in prison. Also, a defense committee was organized by George Lois—a well-known art director, mover and shaker, and man-about-town. Bob Dylan wrote a hit song, performing “The Hurricane” at a fund-raiser at Madison Square Garden, as part of his Rolling Thunder Revue tour, which included Joan Baez. Another concert at the Houston Astrodome featured Stevie Wonder, Ringo Starr, and Dr. John. At the Garden concert, Carter rallied the crowd by a telephone hookup from prison.
Asked to pardon Carter and Artis, New Jersey governor Brendan Byrne tapped a black state assemblyman, Eldridge Hawkins, who had a foot in both camps and was not trusted by our black cont
acts, to look into the case. Soon we got word that Bello had concocted a brand-new story—that he and Bradley were actually inside the Lafayette when the shootings occurred, instead of walking toward it when they heard the shots, as they testified in 1967. In the new story Bello and Bradley went outside after the shots were fired and saw Carter and Artis with no firearms standing near the tavern door. Bello told Hawkins he thought they were involved, but that others he didn’t see had committed the murders.
Hawkins visited John Artis with an offer of freedom if he admitted to being an accomplice. Artis declined. A few months later Bello testified before a grand jury in Newark, where he recited an expanded version of his “I was in the bar” story, but in this version Carter and Artis were outside the bar with weapons.
Meanwhile Myron and I argued the case before the New Jersey Supreme Court. On May 17, 1976, the convictions of both Carter and Artis were vacated in a unanimous decision that hinged on the prosecution’s failure to turn over the tape recording of Bello and DeSimone. But Judge Larner’s rejection of the postconviction Bello and Bradley recantations was not overturned, which would allow them to testify again if another trial was held.
With Bello’s and Bradley’s stories in such disarray, Myron and I hoped the newly appointed Passaic County prosecutor, Burrell Ives Humphreys, would drop the case. The retrial would cost millions of dollars and further destabilize the powder keg of racial tension between the black community and law enforcement in Passaic County. The black community was already up in arms that Frank Conforti, the white man who had killed a black man on the same night, had been allowed to plead to manslaughter and had already been released from prison after serving his time. Humphreys was supposed to be a good liberal—a card-carrying member of both the ACLU and the NAACP. Before we could test his sincerity, however, we had to get Rubin and John released from prison.
For Myron and me, the bail hearing was our first appearance on the Passaic County prosecutor’s home turf. The courthouse in Paterson was a ponderous Victorian structure attached to a modern utilitarian wing where the criminal trials took place. We had been apprehensive about one of Carter’s supporters, Muhammad Ali, coming to the proceedings, but Rubin and George Lois wanted him there.
Inside the county courthouse we were greeted with hostility. When Myron and I tried to work out seating arrangements for Rubin and John’s family and Ali, a court officer growled at us: “What do you think this is, a celebrity show? They’re no celebrities. They’re killers. No one gets any favors here.”
Ali arrived shortly after us, emerging from a limousine to tell the press he was there to see that justice was done and to help out with bail money. He was quickly ushered to the front row. The other spectators were searched one by one and told to keep quiet. Humphreys hunkered down behind his table with a handful of assistants sitting behind him. Vincent DeSimone, heavyset and graying, occupied a rear seat in the spectator section. The scene seemed set for warfare rather than accommodation. When we approached our counsel table a few short feet away from Humphreys, there was only the curtest, most perfunctory of nods. Normally my practice was at least to start out with a handshake, but the chill was so intense that it seemed to create a barrier between our tables.
Before the hearing Myron and I went to see John and Rubin in the holding cell. Rubin was anxious: “Bad vibes, man. I felt safer in the state pen. These Passaic County cops could kill us,” he said.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” we told him. “Just be cool, and let us get you out.” As we worked our way back through the narrow passageways to the courtroom, I wondered who was right. Fake accidents and jailbreaks did happen. A few minutes after we returned to the courtoom, Rubin and John appeared at the side door, court officers holding each by the arm. We rose as the judge slipped into his bench and then made brief arguments. The evidence of guilt was substantial, the judge said, but he would release the defendants for modest amounts, twenty thousand dollars for Rubin and fifteen thousand for John. Bail was posted, and after nine years in prison they were released. Rubin was right. The vibes were bad, and we got out of Paterson as quickly as we could.
Within days Humphreys announced that he was forming a special team to reinvestigate the case. He said he was going to let the chips fall where they would, and DeSimone, who had recently become Passaic County’s chief of detectives, would have nothing to do with the case.
We would learn later that this was a lie. The Carter-Artis Task Force was supported by a special million-dollar appropriation from the county, and DeSimone was in charge. While Myron and I played catch-up, trying to learn all we could about the cast of characters involved in the case, DeSimone and his team prepared for round two, scripting their witnesses and intimidating ours. Al Bello was once again going to tell his original outside-the-bar story. Humphreys claimed that Selwyn Raab and Hal Levinson had confused Bello and tricked him into recanting. As for the entirely different story that Bello told Assemblyman Hawkins, Humphreys waved it off as yet another conspiracy, this time led by Myron, who supposedly wanted to peddle a “tell-all” book. It was a rubber reality. Under the leadership of Humphreys and DeSimone, alibi witnesses were harassed, including one from Washington, DC, who was brought to Paterson and kept in custody until his memory faded. Meanwhile, one of Humphreys’s top assistants, Ronald Marmo, oversaw a Passaic County grand jury that started issuing subpoenas to everyone who had any dealings with Bello, something Myron and I were able to stop, but not before the grand jury madness had the desired effect of frightening off witnesses.
At the same time, Carter was making our coming courtroom battle much more difficult to win. A married man, he started seeing Carolyn Kelley, one of the “Free Hurricane Carter” organizers, and led a high-profile existence. Rubin’s actions were at odds with our attempts to portray him as a family man whose wife had stuck with him, but there was no telling Rubin what to do. Then it happened: a disaster. Rubin and Kelley had attended a boxing match together in Atlantic City and then went to a party at a Delaware hotel. Before the night was over Kelley was in a local hospital, claiming that Rubin beat her up. The local prosecutor investigated and decided not to charge Carter. Even so, a Passaic County judge, William Marchese, let Humphreys hold an unheard-of nine-day bail-revocation hearing. The ensuing media circus was deadly. Rubin remained free, but public support evaporated. The Houston fund-raiser that occurred after the Kelley incident was a flop, and even the Madison Square Garden event raised only small change for the defense committee. Myron and I got jury selection moved out of Paterson, but the new location was only twenty miles down the road to Hudson County, where the publicity had been just as bad and the potential jurors were just as white working class, the very types of jurors we were most worried about. Meanwhile Judge Marchese excused himself as the trial judge.
As crime increased in the sixties and cities were abandoned for the suburbs, white attitudes had hardened. Myron and I stayed focused on how to persuade what would almost certainly be an overwhelmingly white working-class jury to put aside whatever racial attitudes they had and focus on the lack of any hard evidence linking Rubin and John to the triple murders.
After the Carolyn Kelley fiasco, I received word through a back channel that if John sought to have his case severed from Rubin’s, Humphreys would not object, and Rubin would be tried first. If he won, John’s charges would be dropped. If Rubin lost, John would be allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, receive a time-served sentence, and remain free. Without any hesitation John said he was innocent and would never plead guilty to anything. To win at trial Rubin, John, Myron, and I agreed that we needed the jury to hear both Rubin and John testify that they were innocent and would never commit such a crime. We also agreed that both John and Rubin would be far better off with Myron and me working together rather than Myron facing multiple prosecutors and their lineup of witnesses alone. That decision made, we moved on.
The new trial judge was a man named Bruno Leopizzi. Initially we thought that was a good
omen, as Leopizzi had a reputation for being fair, but that reputation would soon be tested. When Bradley balked at testifying again, Humphreys’s case was in serious trouble. To resurrect it he decided to supply a motive for what until then had been a motiveless crime. To do that he would play the race card. Humphreys would argue that the motive for the triple murder at the Lafayette Bar and Grill was racial revenge. Carter and Artis, Humphrey claimed, went on a killing spree to avenge the murder of Roy Holloway, the black man shot by Frank Conforti in the Waltz Inn earlier on the night of the Lafayette shootings.
Leopizzi agreed to instruct Humphreys not to mention his motive theory in his opening statement. But Leopizzi said he would allow Humphreys the opportunity to revisit the issue during the trial if there was sufficient evidence. That put us on high alert to do more research. The good news was that motive evidence had to make sense, like buying life insurance on a spouse before killing him or her. But the bad news was that a judge had lots of discretion. We would argue that there was simply no connection other than race between the two crimes. But we had no idea how Leopizzi would eventually rule. A former well-connected local defense attorney, the graying middle-aged jurist was clearly a “work with me and we’ll get along just fine” type of judge. To rule against Humphreys, however—who worked out of the same courthouse as he did and shared its clubby atmosphere—would be much harder than to rule against us, two outsiders from New York. Leopizzi’s background was also worrisome.
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