HURRICANE
The Life ofRubin Carter, Fighter
James S. Hirsch
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by
Fourth Estate
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Copyright © by James S. Hirsch 2000
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Source ISBN: 9781841151304
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To Sheryl,who gave me her loveand never lost the faith
CONTENTS
10. The Inner Circle of Humanity
BY 1980, New Jersey’s notorious Death House had been revived as a lovers’ alcove, but Rubin “Hurricane” Carter still wanted no part of it.
The Death House was Trenton State Prison’s official name for the brick and concrete vault where condemned men lived in tiny cells and an electric chair stood hard against a nearby wall. The first inmate reached the Death House on October 29, 1907. Six weeks later he was dead, his slumped body shaved and sponged down with salt water, the better to conduct the electricity. New Jersey continued to hang capital offenders for two more years. But soon enough the electric chair, with its wooden body, leather straps, and metal-mesh helmet, which discharged three mortal blasts of up to 2,400 volts, was seen as the most felicitous form of execution.
At least one infamous death gave the site a brief aura of celebrity. Richard Bruno Hauptmann, convicted of murdering Charles Lindbergh’s baby, was electrocuted in the brightly lit chamber at 8:44 P.M. on April 3, 1936. In later years, sentences were carried out at 10 P.M., after the “general population” prisoners had been placed in total lockup. An outside power line fed the chair to ensure that a deadly jolt did not interfere with the penitentiary’s regular lighting. On occasion, “citizen witnesses” crowded into a small green room, with only a rope between them and the chair about ten feet away. The observers watched the executioner turn a large wheel right behind the seated man’s ear, thereby activating the lethal current. The body, penitent or obdurate, innocent or guilty, alive or dead, pressed against the restraints until the current was shut off.
The Death House confronted its own demise in 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed