Florida clemency board pardons wrongly accused ‘Groveland Four’ after 70 years

After nearly 70 years, the Groveland Four — four young black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Lake County — were pardoned by a unanimous vote Friday, reports The Miami Herald.

None of the men are alive, but family members of the men who were either imprisoned, tortured, or murdered by mobs and a racist sheriff, pleaded for their innocence.

According to reports, the Florida Cabinet met for the first time as the state Clemency Board Friday.

The Groveland Four hearing was only supposed to be up for discussion, but in a surprising move, Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a vote.

“I believe in the principles of the Constitution. I believe in getting a fair shake,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way that you can look at this case and see justice was carried out.”

The alleged victim, who was 17 at the time, stated during Friday’s hearing that she had told the truth and opposed the pardons before they were granted.

“I’m begging y’all not to give them pardon,” she reportedly said.

But the clemency panel, which was composed of top officials including the attorney general, praised the work of campaigners before issuing the pardons.

Groveland Four Falsely Accused

Many call the treatment of the four men one of the most abhorrent episodes of racism in American history.

In 1949, a 17-year-old white woman and her estranged husband told police that she’d been kidnapped and raped by four black men after the couple’s car broke down outside Groveland, in Lake County.

Sheriff Willis McCall arrested the four men, even though Charles Greenlee, 17, was arrested in a separate incident 20 miles away when the alleged rape occurred and said he didn’t know the other three men.

Thomas was hunted down by a group of more than 1,000 men shortly after the alleged incident and was shot hundreds of times.

The three others were beaten in custody before being convicted by all-white juries. Samuel Shepherd was later shot and killed by a sheriff while travelling to a retrial.

The case is seen as a historic act of racial injustice and was the subject of the book Devil in the Grove, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was just inaugurated on Tuesday, had promised to prioritize the case during last year’s election campaign.

“These four men have had their history wrongly written for crimes they did not commit,” he said in a statement.

“They were perverted time and time again, and I think the way this was carried out was a miscarriage of justice.”, he added.

Florida’s state government issued a “heartfelt apology” to the families of the four men and recommended their posthumous pardons in 2017.

Photo Source: NPR