Rubin `` Hurricane '' Carter , the middleweight boxing contender who spent 19 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a triple murder , has died in Toronto , according to Win Wahrer , the director of client services for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted . Carter , 76 , died of complications from prostate cancer , Wahrer said . `` I always remember spending hours and hours with Rubin talking about the wrongful convictions , '' she told CNN . `` He was a great mentor and teacher . I felt very fortunate to have those times with him . ... He lived a very full life . '' Carter spent 19 years in prison for a triple killing in New Jersey before a federal judge ruled in 1985 that he and John Artis , who was with Carter on the night of the shootings , did not receive fair trials and released them . Artis was with Carter when he died early Sunday morning , Wahrer said , adding that Carter had lived in Toronto since his release from prison . Carter told CNN three years ago that prison allowed him to do two things : shed the illusions and anger that spurred his youthful delinquency , and come to the realization that his destiny might lie in fighting for justice . He was a title-seeking prizefighter no more . But first , he had to scrap his way out of prison . `` Hatred and bitterness and anger only consume the vessel that contains them . It does n't hurt another soul , '' Carter told CNN . `` If I were to allow myself to continue to feel that anger and the bitterness of being a victim , I would have never survived prison itself . Prison can deal with anger ; prison can deal with hatred because prison is about all those things . So I had to overcome those things . '' Carter became an activist for the wrongly convicted after his release and was the first executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted from 1993 to 2004 . `` Rubin will be remembered by those at AIDWYC who were fortunate enough to have worked with him as a truly courageous man who fought tirelessly to free others who had suffered the same fate as he , '' the group said in a statement . `` We will continue to fight against wrongful convictions , a battle that Rubin valiantly fought until the day he died . Rest in peace Rubin , your battle is over but you will never be forgotten . '' There was a time when boxing enthusiasts were giddy about Carter 's future . He was fast and powerful , hence his sobriquet , and despite being short for his weight class ( 5-foot-8 ) , he became a Madison Square Garden and television fixture . Ring magazine declared him one of the top middleweight contenders in 1963 after he knocked out 11 of his first 15 professional opponents . `` His shaven head , prominent mustache , unwavering stare and solid frame made him an intimidating presence in the ring decades before such a look became commonplace , '' according to the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame . Following a loss in his only title bout in 1964 , Carter precipitously fell from grace , losing seven of his 15 final matches before being fingered in a 1966 triple homicide at the LaFayette Bar and Grill . He was convicted and sentenced to three life terms the following year . The ruling was later overturned , but Carter was convicted again in 1976 , a year after Bob Dylan co-wrote a song declaring his innocence . That conviction , too , was tossed out , and Carter walked out of prison in 1985 . In 1988 , a Passaic County prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss the charges . By that time , Carter was a cause celebre . In addition to the Dylan tune , his case had drawn the attention of a heavyweight counterpart , Muhammad Ali , and actor Burt Reynolds , among others . His plight has also inspired at least a half dozen books , including his own autobiography , written from prison . A major motion picture that opened years after Carter 's release would earn actor Denzel Washington his fourth Oscar nomination . `` God bless Rubin Carter and his tireless fight to ensure justice for all , '' Washington said Sunday . The 1999 film played a key role in introducing Carter to an audience that had not followed his two-decade legal saga , but the ex-boxer said Washington , in a way , also introduced him to himself . In his 2011 book , `` Eye of the Hurricane : My Path from Darkness to Freedom , '' Carter explained that he was not perfect and conceded guilt to a host of regrettable crimes including assaults and robberies -- but not murder . Those crimes , he said , were perpetrated when he was blind , operating unconsciously -- a recurring theme in his book -- and they were the product of the anger to which he succumbed growing up under Jim Crow , he said . People we 've lost in 2014 .
Denzel Washington : God bless Rubin Carter and his last wife . Carter wrote in a later book that he was guilty of other crimes but not murder . A federal judge said Carter and another man failed to receive fair trials . Carter lived in Florida after he was released from prison .