Carl King Profile Writing

________________________________________________________________________

Today, he is an advocate; once he was simply a friend. He has helped numerous people and today has been hailed as a hero by many. 

In the labyrinthine realm of criminal justice, where injustice and malpractice can shatter lives, a remarkable figure stands; Carl “KC” King. 

King, states that he does this “for the sake of goodness, I have a purpose and my purpose is to help others.” As a staunch advocate representing the wrongfully convicted, King has made it his mission to unravel the knotted webs of distorted investigations and failures of justice, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, stacks of paper crowd King’s bedroom. Pages flooded with words covering trial confessions, transcripts, and police reports surrounding his life. They carry the emotions of what he described in an interview as a “crime against humanity”:  a wrongful conviction. 

With an unwavering determination and a heart full of compassion, he has become a beacon of hope for those trapped in the clutches of the criminal justice system. Through tireless efforts, including the high-profile case of his friend Colin Warner, he has exposed the cracks and flaws in the legal system and sparked a movement to rectify and lessen the grave inequities of wrongful convictions. 

When sentenced to fifteen years of his life, at the age of eighteen in the spring of 1980, Warner (King’s friend) started asking himself “How did I get here?”, and describing it like he “was transported to another planet” during his time in jail which he described on This American Life as a “mad house”, with “tiers upon tiers of prisoners, with everybody shouting.” After having grown up together in a village in Trinidad, Carl King felt responsibility as a childhood friend to take upon the case and do what the legal system could not, and prove his innocence.

Despite the strong alibi of Colin Warner being with a friend, and not at the location of the crime, Warner was still not able to show beyond doubt that he was innocent in front of the judge and jury. KC felt the ripples of sorrow reflected through Warner, “I knew this terrible thing happened to my friend, so my thought was I’m going to be dear with him” said King in a recent interview with the SoNYT. King raised money with the aim that Warner could hire an attorney to file a direct appeal, which was done but rejected by the judge. He started collecting police reports, trial transcripts, and any piece of evidence whatsoever that demonstrated the true nature of this situation that is masked by the incompetence of the criminal justice system. Slowly, the hills of paper turned into mountains of legal documentation, and the case became a part of his life, even when taking out the trash in his neighbourhood, King would ask for the public’s knowledge and would inquire whether they held information that may be liable for the case. In the Los Angeles Times, Carl King referred to this as the “village mentality”, voicing that “I sometimes think I just like to make quiet noise. And I keep making it until someone listens.” 

King’s life started molding itself around the case, he split from the mother of his children, and distanced himself from priorities like friends and financial resources,  saying that “it might appear as an obsession for others but I knew the true meaning of friendship”.

Sixteen years after Warner’s release, in an interview with the Gothamist Warner points to Carl King and calls him “the first and only human being I’ve ever met of his caliber” Warner describes King’s actions on The Daily Show, adding that King is “his number one hero”, and “the first human being I’m impressed with”. 

Despite not having a law degree, King rose above the challenges and believes he has “always had it in him” to do this and that is what makes me a hero.

________________________________________________________________________