Four black men accused of 1949 rape of white woman in Florida are pardoned...

Four black men accused of 1949 rape of white woman in Florida are pardoned

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After a dramatic, hour-long meeting that recalled events from nearly seven decades ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's three-member Cabinet granted posthumous pardons Friday to four African-American men accused of raping a white woman in a 1949 case now seen as a racial injustice.

The case of the men known as the Groveland Four has been documented in a book and is considered a blight on Florida's history. One of the four was killed before he could be charged and the other three were convicted on dubious evidence.


The families of the men accused of the assault told DeSantis and the Cabinet — meeting as the clemency board — that there is overwhelming evidence the men were innocent and there was no rape. The woman who was 17 when she said she was raped, sat in a wheelchair and later told Gov. DeSantis and the Cabinet the rape did indeed happen, saying she was dragged from a car, had a gun put to her head and was told not to scream or they would "blow your brains out."

At one point, the two sides briefly clashed. Beverly Robinson, a niece of one of the Groveland Four, was speaking to the governor and the Cabinet when she turned to the woman and her sons.

"It never happened. You all are liars," Robinson said.

"That's enough out of you," the woman said.

"I know it's enough out of me. It's always enough when you're telling the truth," Robinson replied.

The unanimous vote to pardon came almost two years after the state House and Senate voted to formally apologize to relatives of the Groveland Four and to ask then-Gov. Rick Scott to pardon the men. Scott, now a U.S. senator, never took action. DeSantis replaced Scott on Tuesday and made the pardons a priority.

"I don't know that there's any way you can look at this case and think that those ideals of justice were satisfied. Indeed, they were perverted time and time again, and I think the way this was carried out was a miscarriage of justice," DeSantis said.

The ordeal began in Lake County in 1949, when the then-17-year-old said she had been raped. Three of the men were arrested and severely beaten; a fourth, Ernest Thomas, fled.

A posse of about 1,000 men was formed to hunt down Thomas. He was shot 400 times when they found him sleeping under a tree. White residents also formed a mob and went to a black neighborhood, burning houses and firing guns into homes in a disturbance that took days to quell.

Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd were convicted by an all-white jury. Other evidence that could have exonerated them — such as a doctor's conclusion that the teen probably wasn't raped — was withheld at their trial. Greenlee was sentenced to life, and Irvin and Shepherd to death.

Thurgood Marshall, later the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, took up Irvin and Shepherd's appeals for the NAACP, and in 1951 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered new trials.

Just before those trials began, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall shot Irvin and Shepherd, claiming the handcuffed men tried to escape as he transferred them from prison to a jail. Shepherd died. Irvin was shot in the neck and survived despite an ambulance refusing to transport him because he was black. He was again convicted, even though a former FBI agent testified that prosecutors manufactured evidence against him.

Charges were never brought against any white law enforcement officers or prosecutors who handled the cases.

Irvin was paroled in 1968 and found dead in his car while returning to Lake County for a funeral a year later.

Greenlee was paroled in 1960 and died in 2012.

Greenlee's daughter, Carol Greenlee, told DeSantis and the Cabinet that there was overwhelming evidence that her father was innocent.

"He was accused, put in jail and tortured for something he didn't do," she said.

The woman who said she was raped disputed the families' stories.

"Y'all just don't know what kind of horror I've been through for all these many years," she said. "I don't want them pardoned, no I do not, and you wouldn't neither. I know (Robinson) called me a liar, but I'm not no liar."

Afterward, state Sen. Gary Farmer, who sponsored the 2017 resolution apologizing to the families, said the woman's comments were disappointing.

"She's now here at the end of her life and she had a chance to come clean, to seek forgiveness for herself and to support the justice these four families and these four men deserve," Farmer said. "It's very said that she lost this opportunity and continues to perpetuate this lie. This crime did not happen. The evidence is overwhelming."

And not a moment too soon. Ah, shit. They're all dead. :dunno:


This is a real kick in the teeth to the Me-Too Movement which has made it an article of faith that the broad is always to believed in a rape case. Have leading Feminazis been interviewed on this, and been asked to emasculate Gov. DeSanto.
 
Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?
 
Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?


The four men really weren't able to prove their innocence according to the Democrat that sat in judgment.

The lack of physical evidence didn't stop Democrats from trying to convict Brett Kavanaugh of similar charges and trying to ruin his life over accusations of gang rape.
 
Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?


The four men really weren't able to prove their innocence according to the Democrat that sat in judgment.

The lack of physical evidence didn't stop Democrats from trying to convict Brett Kavanaugh of similar charges and trying to ruin his life over accusations of gang rape.
Yep, hypocrisy is strong with the progressives...
 
It is ridiculous to assume black men in the 1940's could be falsely accused of rape.....unless you are trying to imply that there was some sort of racial bias against blacks in the 40's -- which is also ridiculous..

If the woman said those savages sexually assaulted her, they sexually assaulted her....Just like if a women today came forward to say a presidential candidate assaulted her, oh wait!
 
It is ridiculous to assume black men in the 1940's could be falsely accused of rape.....unless you are trying to imply that there was some sort of racial bias against blacks in the 40's -- which is also ridiculous..

If the woman said those savages sexually assaulted her, they sexually assaulted her....Just like if a women today came forward to say a presidential candidate assaulted her, oh wait!


So you think the ethnicity of the accused here is somehow significant?

I saw what happened to Brett Kavanaugh and know that isn't true. Honky men are also often accused and convicted in the Court of Liberal Opinion.
 
It is ridiculous to assume black men in the 1940's could be falsely accused of rape.....unless you are trying to imply that there was some sort of racial bias against blacks in the 40's -- which is also ridiculous..

If the woman said those savages sexually assaulted her, they sexually assaulted her....Just like if a women today came forward to say a presidential candidate assaulted her, oh wait!


So you think the ethnicity of the accused here is somehow significant?

I saw what happened to Brett Kavanaugh and know that isn't true. Honky men are also often accused and convicted in the Court of Liberal Opinion.
Kavanaugh 's life wasn't ruined since, he wasn't murdered before any trial, wasn't sent to prison, and he is currently a supreme court justice with a lifetime appointment.

Meanwhile during that time period you have numerous examples of black men being repeatedly oppressed in the judicial system, so your bullshit ass attempt to act like this isn't a fact is one of the reasons I call folks like you closet racists...

You feel Emmett Till had it coming?
U.S. Reopens Emmett Till Investigation, Almost 63 Years After His Murder

Do you feel George Stinney had it coming?
It took 10 minutes to convict 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. It took 70 years after his execution to exonerate him.

Or we can take the case of Mary Reid, a black woman who was raped by a white man but he was acquitted.

"That same day, white jurors giggled while Mrs. Mary Ruth Reed, a pregnant black woman, testified that Lewis Medlin, a white mechanic, beat and sexually assaulted her in front of her five children. Medlin's attorney argued that he was just having a little fun, that he was married to a "lovely white woman . .. the pure flower of life," whom he would not dare leave for "that." The jury deliberated for less than ten minutes before returning the not guilty verdict"


Now you may say that Mrs. Reid made the story up, but....her neighbor, who is white -- was among the ones who witnessed the rape and intervened causing the man to run away -- despite all of this, he was still acquitted. This happened in 1959, but cowards like you can have the privilege of pretending shit like this didn't happen because it disturbs your delusions -- or when things really get heated, you throw out the pathetic "big deal they were democrats" excuse -- so fucking what? Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms were democrats back then, your point?


https://www.cla.purdue.edu/from-plessy-to-brown/activities/3662860.pdf
 
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>> The unanimous vote to pardon came almost two years after the state House and Senate voted to formally apologize to relatives of the Groveland Four and to ask then-Gov. Rick Scott to pardon the men. Scott, now a U.S. senator, never took action. DeSantis replaced Scott on Tuesday and made the pardons a priority. <<​

What an irony. Rick Scott monkeyed this up and needed DeSantis to fix it.

That’s partisan bullshit! This was fucked up at every step in the justice system. These boys were robbed of their lives, they are the victims. They were already dead for years before Scott was every involved. Sure, he could have pardoned them potshumously sooner, but it would have been of no consequence to the victims. And yes, the relatives of the victims are victims too. But they would have been victims whether the boys were guilty or not. The boys who were apparently railroaded, will never see any form of justice. But you go ahead and make your political point.....non-partisan my ass.

d092bf04494119a92311b203e5fd2eb6.gif

Once AGAIN for the slow readers...

>> The unanimous vote to pardon came almost two years after the state House and Senate voted to formally apologize to relatives of the Groveland Four and to ask then-Gov. Rick Scott to pardon the men. Scott, now a U.S. senator, never took action. DeSantis replaced Scott on Tuesday and made the pardons a priority. <<
Get that? Two years, never took action.

Apparently not only can't you read what's on the page but you're also oblivious to Ron deSantis' infamous expression "to monkey up".

Get back to us when you've learned how to pay attention.

SMH partisan hacks ..... swimming so deep in their own swill they miss all the jokes. :itsok:
 
Four black men accused of 1949 rape of white woman in Florida are pardoned

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After a dramatic, hour-long meeting that recalled events from nearly seven decades ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's three-member Cabinet granted posthumous pardons Friday to four African-American men accused of raping a white woman in a 1949 case now seen as a racial injustice.

The case of the men known as the Groveland Four has been documented in a book and is considered a blight on Florida's history. One of the four was killed before he could be charged and the other three were convicted on dubious evidence.


The families of the men accused of the assault told DeSantis and the Cabinet — meeting as the clemency board — that there is overwhelming evidence the men were innocent and there was no rape. The woman who was 17 when she said she was raped, sat in a wheelchair and later told Gov. DeSantis and the Cabinet the rape did indeed happen, saying she was dragged from a car, had a gun put to her head and was told not to scream or they would "blow your brains out."

At one point, the two sides briefly clashed. Beverly Robinson, a niece of one of the Groveland Four, was speaking to the governor and the Cabinet when she turned to the woman and her sons.

"It never happened. You all are liars," Robinson said.

"That's enough out of you," the woman said.

"I know it's enough out of me. It's always enough when you're telling the truth," Robinson replied.

The unanimous vote to pardon came almost two years after the state House and Senate voted to formally apologize to relatives of the Groveland Four and to ask then-Gov. Rick Scott to pardon the men. Scott, now a U.S. senator, never took action. DeSantis replaced Scott on Tuesday and made the pardons a priority.

"I don't know that there's any way you can look at this case and think that those ideals of justice were satisfied. Indeed, they were perverted time and time again, and I think the way this was carried out was a miscarriage of justice," DeSantis said.

The ordeal began in Lake County in 1949, when the then-17-year-old said she had been raped. Three of the men were arrested and severely beaten; a fourth, Ernest Thomas, fled.

A posse of about 1,000 men was formed to hunt down Thomas. He was shot 400 times when they found him sleeping under a tree. White residents also formed a mob and went to a black neighborhood, burning houses and firing guns into homes in a disturbance that took days to quell.

Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd were convicted by an all-white jury. Other evidence that could have exonerated them — such as a doctor's conclusion that the teen probably wasn't raped — was withheld at their trial. Greenlee was sentenced to life, and Irvin and Shepherd to death.

Thurgood Marshall, later the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, took up Irvin and Shepherd's appeals for the NAACP, and in 1951 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered new trials.

Just before those trials began, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall shot Irvin and Shepherd, claiming the handcuffed men tried to escape as he transferred them from prison to a jail. Shepherd died. Irvin was shot in the neck and survived despite an ambulance refusing to transport him because he was black. He was again convicted, even though a former FBI agent testified that prosecutors manufactured evidence against him.

Charges were never brought against any white law enforcement officers or prosecutors who handled the cases.

Irvin was paroled in 1968 and found dead in his car while returning to Lake County for a funeral a year later.

Greenlee was paroled in 1960 and died in 2012.

Greenlee's daughter, Carol Greenlee, told DeSantis and the Cabinet that there was overwhelming evidence that her father was innocent.

"He was accused, put in jail and tortured for something he didn't do," she said.

The woman who said she was raped disputed the families' stories.

"Y'all just don't know what kind of horror I've been through for all these many years," she said. "I don't want them pardoned, no I do not, and you wouldn't neither. I know (Robinson) called me a liar, but I'm not no liar."

Afterward, state Sen. Gary Farmer, who sponsored the 2017 resolution apologizing to the families, said the woman's comments were disappointing.

"She's now here at the end of her life and she had a chance to come clean, to seek forgiveness for herself and to support the justice these four families and these four men deserve," Farmer said. "It's very said that she lost this opportunity and continues to perpetuate this lie. This crime did not happen. The evidence is overwhelming."

And not a moment too soon. Ah, shit. They're all dead. :dunno:


Florida was ruled by Liberals back in the 1940's

Oh really. Was it now. :eusa_think:

Again ---- link? Names?

That was the period when Stetson Kennedy wrote an exposé about the Klan after he had infiltrated it, and had to flee to Europe over the backlash. Where were these "Liberals" protecting him?


, glad to see DeSantis cleaning up leftist crap.

Rick Scott? The hospital-corruption bald head guy, "leftist"?

Maybe you should stick with places you know. Like Poland.



It would have been great if Mr. Gillum and other prominent Democrats were to man up and take responsibility on the behalf of their ideology.

Dafuck does that mean?

POGO- am I mistaken, I thought you declared yourself to be politically unaffiliated? These black kids were railroaded, robbed of their lives, killed. And after their dead you claim it took a Democrat to clean up the mess by a Republican. That sounds pretty partisan to me. Why would you want to make this a political issue when all the perps and victims are either dead or inconsequential at this point. Trust me, you don’t want to know the political party controlling Florida when these injustices were carried out.

Dood, what in the wide world of blue friggety fuck are you even babbling about here? :cuckoo:

You know that isn't your post I just quoted --- you know that, right?

You know that both Rick Scott and Ron deSantis are Republicans, not that it's relevant --- you know that right?

You know I said nothing about political parties anyway --- you know that, right? Nor did the post I quoted --- you know that, right?

Are you completely illiterate?
 
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Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?


The four men really weren't able to prove their innocence according to the Democrat that sat in judgment.

Clearly you're clueless about how this country actually works. You don't "prove your innocence"; you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Just like this board or anyone making any assertion anywhere, the burden of proof is on the accuser or asserter. You dont "prove" a negative. That's impossible.

And number two you don't know, nor should you care, what the political party affiliations of a jury in 1951 were, that is if they had any at all. A trial is not a political process.
 
Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?


The four men really weren't able to prove their innocence according to the Democrat that sat in judgment.

Clearly you're clueless about how this country actually works. You don't "prove your innocence"; you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Just like this board or anyone making any assertion anywhere, the burden of proof is on the accuser or asserter. You dont "prove" a negative. That's impossible.

And number two you don't know, nor should you care, what the political party affiliations of a jury in 1951 were, that is if they had any at all. A trial is not a political process.
Lol
...and still no Russian connection
 
Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?


The four men really weren't able to prove their innocence according to the Democrat that sat in judgment.

Clearly you're clueless about how this country actually works. You don't "prove your innocence"; you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Just like this board or anyone making any assertion anywhere, the burden of proof is on the accuser or asserter. You dont "prove" a negative. That's impossible.

And number two you don't know, nor should you care, what the political party affiliations of a jury in 1951 were, that is if they had any at all. A trial is not a political process.


Mr. Kavanaugh was not presumed innocent at all. I don't know if these men were or weren't. But if they were presumed guilty by the jury, Kav can relate. 48 senators voted to ruin the man's life last fall, even though there was no proof at all, nothing but the broad's testimony
 
Lol
Most likely they didn’t rape the women but according to today’s political correctness, They deserved what they got?


The four men really weren't able to prove their innocence according to the Democrat that sat in judgment.

Clearly you're clueless about how this country actually works. You don't "prove your innocence"; you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Just like this board or anyone making any assertion anywhere, the burden of proof is on the accuser or asserter. You dont "prove" a negative. That's impossible.

And number two you don't know, nor should you care, what the political party affiliations of a jury in 1951 were, that is if they had any at all. A trial is not a political process.


Mr. Kavanaugh was not presumed innocent at all. I don't know if these men were or weren't. But if they were presumed guilty by the jury, Kav can relate. 48 senators voted to ruin the man's life last fall, even though there was no proof at all, nothing but the broad's testimony

There is no one named "Kavanaugh" in this story. Maybe I missed it --- point it out. Nor am I aware of any 48 Senators voting to "ruin someone's life". Perhaps you can point that out too. Perhaps not. Nor do I believe in "broads".

Meanwhile back in Topic Land the point stands. You don't prove negatives, the onus is never on the defendant, and a trial is not a political process.
 
Four black men accused of 1949 rape of white woman in Florida are pardoned

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — After a dramatic, hour-long meeting that recalled events from nearly seven decades ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's three-member Cabinet granted posthumous pardons Friday to four African-American men accused of raping a white woman in a 1949 case now seen as a racial injustice.

The case of the men known as the Groveland Four has been documented in a book and is considered a blight on Florida's history. One of the four was killed before he could be charged and the other three were convicted on dubious evidence.


The families of the men accused of the assault told DeSantis and the Cabinet — meeting as the clemency board — that there is overwhelming evidence the men were innocent and there was no rape. The woman who was 17 when she said she was raped, sat in a wheelchair and later told Gov. DeSantis and the Cabinet the rape did indeed happen, saying she was dragged from a car, had a gun put to her head and was told not to scream or they would "blow your brains out."

At one point, the two sides briefly clashed. Beverly Robinson, a niece of one of the Groveland Four, was speaking to the governor and the Cabinet when she turned to the woman and her sons.

"It never happened. You all are liars," Robinson said.

"That's enough out of you," the woman said.

"I know it's enough out of me. It's always enough when you're telling the truth," Robinson replied.

The unanimous vote to pardon came almost two years after the state House and Senate voted to formally apologize to relatives of the Groveland Four and to ask then-Gov. Rick Scott to pardon the men. Scott, now a U.S. senator, never took action. DeSantis replaced Scott on Tuesday and made the pardons a priority.

"I don't know that there's any way you can look at this case and think that those ideals of justice were satisfied. Indeed, they were perverted time and time again, and I think the way this was carried out was a miscarriage of justice," DeSantis said.

The ordeal began in Lake County in 1949, when the then-17-year-old said she had been raped. Three of the men were arrested and severely beaten; a fourth, Ernest Thomas, fled.

A posse of about 1,000 men was formed to hunt down Thomas. He was shot 400 times when they found him sleeping under a tree. White residents also formed a mob and went to a black neighborhood, burning houses and firing guns into homes in a disturbance that took days to quell.

Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd were convicted by an all-white jury. Other evidence that could have exonerated them — such as a doctor's conclusion that the teen probably wasn't raped — was withheld at their trial. Greenlee was sentenced to life, and Irvin and Shepherd to death.

Thurgood Marshall, later the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, took up Irvin and Shepherd's appeals for the NAACP, and in 1951 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered new trials.

Just before those trials began, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall shot Irvin and Shepherd, claiming the handcuffed men tried to escape as he transferred them from prison to a jail. Shepherd died. Irvin was shot in the neck and survived despite an ambulance refusing to transport him because he was black. He was again convicted, even though a former FBI agent testified that prosecutors manufactured evidence against him.

Charges were never brought against any white law enforcement officers or prosecutors who handled the cases.

Irvin was paroled in 1968 and found dead in his car while returning to Lake County for a funeral a year later.

Greenlee was paroled in 1960 and died in 2012.

Greenlee's daughter, Carol Greenlee, told DeSantis and the Cabinet that there was overwhelming evidence that her father was innocent.

"He was accused, put in jail and tortured for something he didn't do," she said.

The woman who said she was raped disputed the families' stories.

"Y'all just don't know what kind of horror I've been through for all these many years," she said. "I don't want them pardoned, no I do not, and you wouldn't neither. I know (Robinson) called me a liar, but I'm not no liar."

Afterward, state Sen. Gary Farmer, who sponsored the 2017 resolution apologizing to the families, said the woman's comments were disappointing.

"She's now here at the end of her life and she had a chance to come clean, to seek forgiveness for herself and to support the justice these four families and these four men deserve," Farmer said. "It's very said that she lost this opportunity and continues to perpetuate this lie. This crime did not happen. The evidence is overwhelming."

And not a moment too soon. Ah, shit. They're all dead. :dunno:


Florida was ruled by Liberals back in the 1940's

Oh really. Was it now. :eusa_think:

Again ---- link? Names?

That was the period when Stetson Kennedy wrote an exposé about the Klan after he had infiltrated it, and had to flee to Europe over the backlash. Where were these "Liberals" protecting him?


, glad to see DeSantis cleaning up leftist crap.

Rick Scott? The hospital-corruption bald head guy, "leftist"?

Maybe you should stick with places you know. Like Poland.



It would have been great if Mr. Gillum and other prominent Democrats were to man up and take responsibility on the behalf of their ideology.

Dafuck does that mean?

I guess the poster can't answer any of these. What a surprise.
 

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