Florida Senate - 2017 SCR 920
By Senator Farmer
34-00535A-17 2017920__
1 Senate Concurrent Resolution
2 A concurrent resolution acknowledging the grave
3 injustice perpetrated against Charles Greenlee, Walter
4 Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas, who came to
5 be known as the “Groveland Four,” exonerating the four
6 men, offering a formal and heartfelt apology to these
7 victims of racial hatred and to their families; and
8 urging the Governor and Cabinet to pardon Walter Irvin
9 and Charles Greenlee.
10
11 WHEREAS, on July 16, 1949, a 17-year-old white woman and
12 her estranged husband reported to police that they had been
13 attacked and that she had been raped by four black men after the
14 car in which she and her estranged husband were riding broke
15 down on a rural road outside Groveland, in Lake County, and
16 WHEREAS, despite the lack of physical evidence in the case
17 and the established alibis of the accused, Charles Greenlee,
18 Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas, the four men
19 were presumed guilty, and
20 WHEREAS, Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd, both World War
21 II veterans, acknowledged that they had stopped by the broken
22 down vehicle to see if they could assist the couple, but denied
23 any involvement in the alleged rape, and
24 WHEREAS, Charles Greenlee, who was only 16 years old at the
25 time, and Ernest Thomas denied ever meeting the alleged victim
26 and her estranged husband, and
27 WHEREAS, after their arrest that evening, Charles Greenlee,
28 Walter Irvin, and Samuel Shepherd were severely beaten in the
29 basement of the county jail, and Mr. Greenlee and Mr. Shepherd
30 were coerced into confessing to the crime, while Mr. Irvin
31 refused to admit his guilt, and
32 WHEREAS, Ernest Thomas, who fled the county, was shot to
33 death several days later in Madison County by members of a
34 deputized posse of armed men, and
35 WHEREAS, the three surviving men, Charles Greenlee, Walter
36 Irvin, and Samuel Shepherd, were tried and convicted in the
37 case, with Mr. Greenlee sentenced to life imprisonment due to
38 his age and Mr. Irvin and Mr. Shepherd sentenced to death, and
39 WHEREAS, Thurgood Marshall, then executive director of the
40 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, appealed the
41 convictions of Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd to the United
42 States Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned the judgments
43 on April 9, 1951, and ordered a retrial, and
44 WHEREAS, 7 months later, in November 1951, while
45 transporting Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepherd from Florida State
46 Prison in Raiford to Tavares State Prison for a pretrial
47 hearing, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall and Deputy Sheriff
48 James L. Yates shot both men on a dirt road leading into
49 Umatilla, claiming that they had shot the handcuffed men in
50 self-defense when the two tried to escape, and
51 WHEREAS, Samuel Shepherd died at the scene as a result of
52 his wounds, but Walter Irvin, who pretended to be dead, survived
53 and accused the sheriff and his deputy of attempted murder, but
54 no charges were ever brought against the officers, and
55 WHEREAS, Walter Irvin was retried and convicted a second
56 time for the crime and was sentenced to death, despite the fact
57 that the state attorney allegedly withheld exculpatory medical
58 evidence from the defense, and despite testimony from a former
59 Federal Bureau of Investigation criminologist stating that he
60 believed forensic evidence had been manufactured by deputies,
61 and
62 WHEREAS, Mr. Irvin’s sentence was commuted to life in
63 prison in 1955 by then Governor LeRoy Collins, who was not
64 convinced of Mr. Irvin’s guilt, and
65 WHEREAS, in 1970, while visiting Lake County, Walter Irvin,
66 who had been paroled 2 years earlier by then Governor Claude
67 Kirk, was found dead in his car, and, while Mr. Irvin’s death
68 was officially attributed to natural causes, Thurgood Marshall
69 reportedly had doubts about the circumstances surrounding his
70 death, and
71 WHEREAS, Charles Greenlee, who was paroled in 1962 after
72 serving 12 years in prison, died in April 2012 at the age of 78,
73 and
74 WHEREAS, the grave injustice perpetrated against the
75 Groveland Four extended far beyond Lake and Madison Counties and
76 is believed to have played a role in the deaths of National
77 Association for the Advancement of Colored People leader Harry
78 T. Moore and his wife, Harriette, who had advocated on behalf of
79 the four men and were killed when their home in Mims was bombed
80 on December 25, 1951, and
81 WHEREAS, the people of this state recognize that no action
82 on the part of the Legislature can make right the egregious
83 wrongs perpetrated against Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin,
84 Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas and their families by the
85 criminal justice system, law enforcement agencies, and
86 individuals whose actions were fueled by racial hatred, and
87 WHEREAS, the families of Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin,
88 Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas have demanded that steps be
89 taken to clear the men’s names, NOW, THEREFORE,
90
91 Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida, the House
92 of Representatives Concurring:
93
94 That we hereby acknowledge that Charles Greenlee, Walter
95 Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas were the victims of
96 gross injustices and that we apologize to the families of the
97 Groveland Four for all of the aforementioned wrongs and deem the
98 four men formally exonerated.
99 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature urges the
100 Governor and Cabinet to review the cases of Walter Irvin and
101 Charles Greenlee and to grant Mr. Irvin and Mr. Greenlee
102 pardons.
103 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be
104 provided to the Governor, the Attorney General, the Chief
105 Financial Officer, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and the
106 families of the Groveland Four as a tangible token of the
107 sentiments expressed herein.