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One of the convicts, Walter Irvin, speaks to his lawyers at the time his new trial in 1952
Four black men wrongly accused of raping a white teenager in Florida 70 years ago were pardoned
Officials voted unanimously to grant pardon during A meeting held in the state capital of Tallahassee on Friday.
No.
Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Ernest Thomas are known as Groveland Four and were accused of kidnapping and raping a girl in 1949.
Shortly after the alleged incident Thomas was pursued by more than 1,000 men and received hundreds of shots.
- "There will be racism until the day we die"
The other three were defeated. in detention before being convicted by juries composed exclusively of whites. Samuel Shepherd was later killed by a sheriff while he was going to a new trial.
The case is considered a historical racial injustice and was the subject of the book Devil in the Grove, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. [19659014] Copyright of the author. image
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Three of the men were convicted by wholly-composed jurors.
The alleged victim, aged 17 at the time, insisted during Friday's hearing to say that she had told the truth and that she was safe. was opposed to grace before getting it.
"Please do not give them grace," she would have said.
But the clemency committee, composed of senior officials, including the attorney general, praised the activists' work before delivering the graces.
The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, which was inaugurated on Tuesday. , had promised to give priority to the case during the election campaign last year.
"The story of these four men was poorly written for crimes they did not commit," he said in a statement.
He added, "They were perverse, many times, and I think the way this was done was a miscarriage of justice."
The Florida state government sent "sincere apology" to the families of the four men and recommended their posthumous pardon in 2017. [19659028]
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