- NEW YORK: More than three decades have passed since Bob Dylan brought the plight of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter into the public consciousness: “Criminals in their coats and their ties are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise while Rubin sits like Buddha in a 10-foot cell, an innocent man in a living hell.”
Dylan championed the case of Carter, a former middleweight boxer convicted twice of a 1966 triple murder. And in the end, Carter was freed after 19 years in prison; a federal judge found that the conviction was tainted by racial bias and that Carter and his codefendant were denied their civil rights. Now, academics from around the country will examine the implications of that song and others during “Bob Dylan and the Law,” a conference presented by Fordham University’s law and ethics center and Touro Law School. “We basically said to people who write and think about the law and who also happen to like Dylan’s music, ‘find a way to put them together; tell us how Dylan relates to your academic work or your thinking,” said Fordham professor Bruce Green, one of the organizers.
