Death Penalty Activist Ruben “Hurricane” Carter is Dead

Ruben "Hurricane" Carter dead at 76

Toronto, Canada— He was one of seven siblings raised in poverty.   Ruben “Hurricane” Carter had a troubled youth filled with police, jail, courts and prison.  He somehow found salvation and money as a champion boxer until his new life came crashing down.

Carter’s troubled past kept him on the police radar as a “usual suspect” and he was arrested and twice convicted for a New Jersey triple murder.  Finally in 1985 after some 20 years in prison Carter finally won his freedom from the wrongful conviction.

Carter left the nation that failed him in seeking justice for Canada.  He spent the rest of his life speaking, advocating and investigating on behalf of Death Row inmates.  Carter created and chaired a foundation for the wrongly convicted. 

Carter and Willoughby courtesy New Times

I met and chatted extensively with Carter in Phoenix when he came there on behalf of former Death Row inmate 
Dan Willoughby during his second trial.   Willoughby asked me to do his defense investigation but the court appointed rotation list did not allow for that to happen.  He had insufficient resources to hire me.  Instead I covered the case for TV news.  

Carter was a friendly and determined fellow.  Just like the actor that played him in the movie Hurricane, Denzel Washington, Carter was a very sharp dresser.    

Dan Willoughby

Dan Willoughby had a somewhat sordid adulterous affair with a Mexican transsexual named Yesenia Patino.  In 1991, Patino murdered Willoughby’s then wife Trish in Rocky Point, Mexico. 

Arizona authorities felt that Willoughby was involved in a murder conspiracy that began there and claimed jurisdiction of the murder that was committed in a foreign land.

Patino said she beat Trish Willoughby’s head in with a medieval mace and stabbed her with two knives and strangled her with a rope.  Patino was sent to a Mexican prison for 35 years but was brought to Arizona twice to testify against Willoughby.   Patino first claimed that Willoughby was present and participated in the murder. 

After the first trial Patino recanted, saying she carried out the murder alone and that led to the second trial.   

Even thought the crime occurred in Mexico where there is no death penalty Willoughby wound up on Arizona’s Death Row.  The resources and expertise of Mexican police to examine the crime scene was nothing less than what we’d call today, a CSI nightmare.

Getting an Arizona jury to believe Willoughby considering his peculiar adultery paramour and issues surrounding his dead wife’s wealth and a $1 million life insurance policy proved impossible. 

The jury viewed Willoughby as being a philandering, gold digging, perverted and unsympathetic character.  He was convicted again at his second trial.  This time Willoughby was spared the death penalty and re-sentenced to life in Prison.  

Carter passed away at age 76 in Toronto.  His funeral arrangements are pending.

The Death Penalty for Dummies

Phoenix, AZ—I don’t think the people that know me or visit my blog will ever question my Conservative/Libertarian credentials.  As a young man growing up I naturally hated criminal violence and wanted to see cruel killers exterminated.  Believe me when I say my thinking on this has not changed a bit.  Not all, but certainly most murderers do not deserve to live. 

I’m also staunch believer in Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws as well as the absolute right of law-abiding Americans to carry guns wherever they wish.  The statistics overwhelmingly show that armed citizens save millions of lives every year.  In the vast majority of these incidents a gum may have been displayed but no shots were fired. 

I never morn the justifiable killing of thugs like Travon Martin, home invaders, armed robbers, rapists or murderers.  I also believe that each justifiable homicide prevents as many as a dozen future violent crimes that otherwise would have been committed by the decedent.

The Death Penalty is an entirely different matter.  This is a pre-meditated murder of an accused suspect.  It is the product of our local, state and federal governments along with their appointed bureaucrats.  We all know how unreasonable government can be.  We have a criminal justice system that is awash in wrongful convictions, corruption and incompetence.

Our jury system fails when our government’s judges keep evidence from being seen by juries.   It fails yet again when jurors are not allowed to consider or even know what punishment the accused defendants faces.

No matter what your political persuasion may be you will see politicians elected or otherwise put in office that you distrust, dislike and even hate.  Do you want a government run by what you consider an evil politician to have the ability to have you arrested, tried, convicted and executed?  You may like who is in office right now but that can and does change in a heartbeat.

Keeping someone in a cage for life, with crappy food, harsh prison temperatures and abject loneliness is punishment that far exceeds a merciful lethal injection.   Just imagine what that would be like.

For taxpayers the Death Penalty is a total disaster.  The pst-cnviction litigation must run its course usually through a state court system of appeals and once that happens the Habeas Corpus efforts begin with a federal judge and winds its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  That process can take 30 years to complete and usually costs many millions of dollars.  Needless to say you pick up both the prosecution and defense’s legal tab.  It’s much cheaper to imprison someone for life. 

The Death Penalty has never been a crime deterrent beyond making sure the executed cannot reoffend.

With respect to every government on earth sooner or later history redundantly shows that they go bad and begin to slaughter their own citizens.  The Death Penalty is a control tool for Communists, Socialists and every Muslim Nation.   It’s a tool for America’s Far Left Wing.  You don’t see Obama or his political minions calling for ending this vile practice.  Ask yourselves, why not?  What’s past is prologue.   

Please pass this around to your conservative friends.

William Heirens, is Near Death Today in a Chicago Hospice

Chicago, IL—Most of my readers know that I hate the death penalty and consider the American criminal justice system deeply flawed. Either the innocent are convicted or dangerous criminals are given freedom far too early endangering society. My personal quote is, “If justice happens it’s usually by accident and for all the wrong reasons.”

A single mother, who was most of the time only one step ahead of the Sheriff’s eviction team, raised me on Chicago’s North side. Just two years before I was born there were three ugly murders. My mother warned me about strangers and a man named William Heirens. Heirens was the proverbial boogyman.

Two adult women Josephine Ross, Frances Brown and six year-old Suzanne Degnan, were murdered. The Degnan killing was unusually depraved because she was cut up and her body parts dumped in various catch basins in the neighborhood.

William Heirens confessed to these crimes and entered a Guilty Plea in court avoiding Cook County Jail’s busy electric chair. The way that happened is shameful in a civilized nation that claims to be fair and just.

There were also incredible similarities between the Degnan murder and the Lindberg kidnapping murder decades earlier. A ladder was found leading up to her window at her North Kenmore avenue apartment and police found a poorly drafted ransom note.

William Heirens was a juvenile serial burglar. He was also a genius who went from a Catholic reform school to the prestigious University of Chicago. He became one of many suspects.

Three men were hauled in for the Degnan murder in series of dreadful arrests. A janitor, Hector Verburgh, 65 was arrested, beaten until he confessed, smeared in the press as a deranged killer and soon released when it was learned he was unable to write English. He sued the cops and was awarded a money judgment.

Sidney Sherman was a recently discharged WWII marine living in the South side Hyde Park YMCA, who became the next subject of a nationwide dragnet for the Degnan murder. He was hauled in, took and passed a polygraph test and had an alibi. They released Sherman.

William Heirens, was soon bagged by the cops, beaten and forced to confess to the Degnan murder. The incredible film noir photographs of Heirens above speak for themselves. Over the years Chicago cops gained a reputation of being proficient medieval torturers who could get anyone to confess to anything.

Heirens was subjected to the unprecedented forced administration of the drug sodium pentathol and interrogated under its influence. The drug was debunked as a “truth serum” many decades ago. Police also compelled Heirens to recreate the crimes for press photographers.

At the apartment of Frances Brown there was a bloody fingerprint left behind that was the subject of mixed opinions as to being left by Heirens. He was excluded initially and later implicated by latent print examiners. The Brown apartment was also where that infamous message written in Brown’s lipstick, presumably by the killer, “For heavens sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself.” The media used that passage to call Heirens, The Lipstick Killer.

There was yet another confession however there was no beating or coercion involved. That came from a convicted child molester, Richard Russell Thomas. Thomas was a Chicago musician, nurse and a song-writer who was in custody of the Phoenix, Arizona police for an unrelated crime. Thomas freely confessed to the Degnan murder and it was learned he was a regular at a used car lot very close to Degnan’s home at the time of the murder.

About fifteen years ago ABC World News Tonight asked me to track Thomas down if I could for a story they were doing about Heirens. I soon leaned that Thomas had passed away in Austin, Texas. I located living family members that confirmed the confession and were actually convinced Thomas, not Heirens killed the little girl.

On an interesting side note, Thomas’ family members told me that he wrote the song that became a hit record for Les Paul and Mary Ford called, Vaya Con Dios My Darling. Thomas sold the song to the person now credited for its origin.

At the time of the ABC News request, the renowned death penalty lawyer, Jed Stone, represented Heirens. I called Stone who was very busy working on clemency for Heirens for information for our story. Later I found myself blessed to be working as Stone’s investigator on important cases and today we are good friends.

I learned that Heirens was recently given a medical furlough from the Dixon Correctional Center medium security prison in Dixon, Illinois. I know he was blind, in a wheelchair suffering from diabetes. Today Heirens 83 years-old and has served more time in prison that any other inmate in Illinois to date.

I contacted Stone who sadly told me that Heirens was sent to the hospice, is receiving a morphine drip and is not expected to survive the week. Stone gave me the following statement:

“Bill Heirens has spent over six decades behind bars for crimes he did not commit. And yet it cannot be said that Bill's life was wasted. He earned a college degree and learned to paint. He worked within the prison walls and earned the respect of wardens and guards, chaplains and inmates.

Bill became skilled as a prison lawyer and has written more winning briefs than most lawyers I know. At his 1995 clemency hearing the audience contained many men, once prisoners, now free, there to express gratitude for Bill Heirens.

As a boy growing up on Chicago's North side, I was told that Bill Heirens was the boogieman. Many years later when I became Bill's lawyer, he became my friend. We have exchanged birthday and holiday cards. One of his watercolors hangs prominently in my office library. I am saddened by the thought that I could not win his freedom.”

Update, I woke up to the news that William Heirens died hours after I posted this article. He died at Chicago’s UIC medical center. This morning he is at the Cook County Morgue. I suspect that there will be a memorial service of some type and we will all learn about positive contributions to society by this man. Heirens was 83.

That watercolor Painting:



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