Relatives of the Groveland Four, from left, Vivian Shepherd, niece of Sam Shepherd, Gerald Threat, grandson of Walter Irvin; Carol Greenlee, daughter of Charles Greenlee, gathers at a memorial for the Groveland Four in front of the Old Lake County courthouse in Tavares, Fla., February 21, 2020.
Joe Burbank / AP
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Joe Burbank / AP
Relatives of the Groveland Four, from left, Vivian Shepherd, niece of Sam Shepherd, Gerald Threat, grandson of Walter Irvin; Carol Greenlee, daughter of Charles Greenlee, gathers at a memorial for the Groveland Four in front of the Old Lake County courthouse in Tavares, Fla., February 21, 2020.
Joe Burbank / AP
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A judge on Monday formally acquitted four young African-Americans over the false allegation that they raped a white woman seven decades ago, in an attempt to partially and belatedly compensate for the rape. one of the greatest flaws of Jim Crow justice in Florida.
At the request of local prosecutors, Administrative Judge Heidi Davis dismissed the charges against Ernest Thomas and Samuel Shepherd, who were shot dead by law enforcement, and dropped the charges and convictions. the case of Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin. The men known as the Groveland Four, who ranged from 16 to 26 at the time, were accused of raping a woman in the town of Groveland, central Florida in 1949.
“We followed the evidence to see where it led us and it led us to this point,” said Bill Gladson, the local state attorney, after a hearing in the same Lake County court , where the initial hearings took place. Gladson, a Republican, moved last month to demand that the men be officially vindicated.
The families of the men say it is possible the case will spark a re-examination of other convictions of Black men and women from the Jim Crow era so that those wrongly convicted can be cleared. Name.
“We’re so lucky. I hope this is a start because so many people didn’t get this opportunity. So many families didn’t get this opportunity. Maybe they will,” Aaron said. Newson, grandson of Thomas said. He burst into tears when he spoke. “This country needs to come together.”
Thomas was killed by a soldier who shot him more than 400 times shortly after the alleged rape. The local sheriff, Willis McCall, fatally shot Shepherd and wounded Irvin in 1951 as he brought them to a second trial after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned their original convictions, saying that no evidence has been presented. The sheriff claims the men tried to escape, but Irvin said McCall and his deputy shot them in cold blood.
Gilbert King, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 book on the case, “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” attended the hearing with Thurgood Marshall Jr., son of the late justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Thurgood Marshall Sr., then with the NAACP, represented Irvin in his second trial, but an all-white jury again convicted him and he was sentenced to death. Irvin narrowly escaped the death penalty in 1954 and Governor LeRoy Collins reduced his sentence to life in prison with a pardon. Greenlee, also sentenced to life, was pardoned in 1962 and died in 2012. Irvin died in 1969, a year after being pardoned.
King said it was “significantly important for the men to be exonerated in the same building where the trials were held because upstairs there is a courtroom where 72 years ago (a) disgust about the justice that took place.” He praised Gladson for his pursuit of justice.
“He could have easily dumped this and let someone else handle it,” King said. “Even as it turned out to be frustrating and he felt there was no way forward today, he dug deeper.”
Marshall Jr said that, perhaps more than in any other case, the Groveland Four “haunted” his father.
“But he believes better days are ahead,” Marshall Jr. speak.
The Florida Legislature in 2017 formally apologized to the men’s families. Governor Ron DeSantis and the state’s three-member Cabinet pardoned it more than two years ago. In 2018, then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the state’s Department of Law Enforcement to review the case. Earlier this year, the agency referred its findings to Gladson for his review.
Gladson and an investigator interviewed the grandson of Jesse Hunter, the now deceased prosecutor for two of Groveland’s four defendants. According to his nephew, Broward Hunter, his grandfather and a judge in the case knew there was no rape.
The nephew also suggested to Gladson, based on letters he found in his grandfather’s office in 1971, that Willis may have shot Shepherd and Irvin because the sheriff was involved in an illegal gambling operation. France. It is alleged that Shepherd was also involved in gambling, and Willis may see the rape case as “a way to get some people on his list,” Hunter told prosecutors and investigators. pellets.
Gladson also said that James Yates, a deputy who served as a key witness, was capable of fabricating evidence, including shoe embryos.
Prosecutors also sent Irvin’s pants to a crime lab in September for a semen test, which was never done at Irvin’s trial, although jurors argued that the pants were yellowed. The results showed no evidence of semen.
“The significance of this finding cannot be overstated,” Gladson said in his motion.
