Four men known as the “Groveland Four” have been exonerated for false accusations that they raped a white woman in 1949.
Circuit Judge Heidi Davis cleared four Black men of their alleged charges on Monday, after State Attorney Bill Gladson submit a petition to vindicate them last month in what he said was a “complete breakdown of the criminal justice system.”
Judge Davis’ own ruling dismissed the charges, set aside the convictions and convictions, and revised the case with newly discovered evidence.
Men’s family sitting in the courtroom on Monday with mixed emotions following the ruling. Some clapped, others hugged, and many shed tears.
More than seven decades ago, a 17-year-old white woman and her husband from rural Groveland, Florida claimed that four Black men ambushed them and raped her when her husband’s car broke down on a child. country road in 1949.. Four men were quickly prosecuted: Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin.
Before he could stand trial, Thomas was killed; shot more than 400 times by a local army. Although there is little evidence that the Blacks committed the crime, others were quickly convicted in Jim Crow’s time.
Greenlee, 16 years old at the time, received a life sentence. Shepherd and Irvin were sentenced to death.
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The US Supreme Court overturned their initial conclusions, saying that no evidence had been presented. On the way to the second trial, a local sheriff shot Shepherd dead and wounded Irvin in 1951. The sheriff claimed the men tried to escape, but Irvin said they were shot. in cold blood.
Thurgood Marshall Sr., of the NAACP at the time, represented Irvin in his second trial. He was again sentenced to death by an all-white jury. Irvin narrowly escaped the death penalty in 1954 and Florida Governor LeRoy Collins reduced his sentence to life in prison with a pardon in 1968. He died a year later, in 1969.
Greenlee, the youngest of the four, was pardoned in 1962 and died in 2012.
Marshall Jr., son of the late US Supreme Court judge, Thurgood Marshall, said that perhaps more than any other case, the Groveland Four “haunted” his father.
“But he believes better days are ahead,” said Marshall Jr. speak.
The former Florida attorney general ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to review the case in 2018, and state attorney Gladson began a full review soon after.
He gathered through an interview with the prosecutor’s grandson that the prosecutor and the judge in the case probably knew that there was no rape. Gladson also said that a deputy who had been a key witness had the ability to fabricate evidence.
An important piece of evidence in sentencing focuses on Irvin’s pants. Prosecutors claimed they were contaminated with semen, but in reality, the pants were never tested in a crime lab. After testing the pants recently, the results showed no evidence of semen, Gladson said.
“The evidence clearly shows that a sheriff, a judge and a prosecutor, all but the convicts, are guilty in this case,” his actions to whitewash the state of four. defied their oath, and caused a series of events that left these men, their families, and the community in permanent ruin. “
The Florida Legislature formally apologized to the men’s families in 2017, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pardoned the Groveland Four in 2019. But an pardon still carries the implication of guilt.
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The pardon will completely erase the Groveland Four’s alleged crimes.
Carol Greenlee, Greenlee’s daughter, cried in the courtroom on Monday.
“It is far from coming,” she said, adding that she visited her father in prison and played in the prison yard when she was 3 years old.
The men’s families say the case could trigger a retrial of other falsely accused black men and women from the Jim Crow era.
The famous case of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy who lived in Mississippi after being accused of insulting a white woman, occurred six years after the Groveland Four charged him.
“We are so lucky. I hope that this is a start because a lot of people didn’t get this opportunity,” said Aaron Newson, Thomas’ grandson. A lot of families didn’t get this opportunity. Maybe they will. This country needs to come together.”
Contribute: Frank Fernandez, The Daytona Beach News-Journal; Frank Stanfield; Trade daily; Related press
