Rubin Carter Dead At Age 76

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the onetime boxer whose controversial conviction for two 1966 murders became the subject of an autobiography, a Bob Dylan song and a 1999 Denzel Washington movie, died today (Sunday). He was 76 and had been suffering from prostate cancer. 

The middleweight prizefighter was convicted twice for the murders of two people in a New Jersey bar and spent 19 years in prison before he was exonerated and freed in 1985. Carter died at his home in Toronto, where had been living for a number of years, working to aid people unjustly imprisoned.

Bob Dylan is on tour in Japan and not be reached for comment. Denzel Washington issued a statement saying, "God bless Rubin Carter and his tireless fight to ensure justice for all.