Prosecutor seeks to dismiss case against Groveland Four

More than 70 years after four young Black men — known now as the Groveland Four — were wrongly accused of raping a white teen girl in Lake County, State Attorney William Gladson has filed a motion to “confront our sins” and formally clear their names in state court.

Ernest Thomas was killed shortly after he was accused of the crime in 1949. Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin and Samuel Shepard were tried and found guilty.

Greenlee was sentenced to life in prison because he was only 16 at the time while Irvin and Shepard were sentenced to death. After they were granted a new trial, Shepard was fatally shot by infamous Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall and Irvin was injured.

Greenlee was paroled in 1962. He died in 2012. Irvin was paroled shortly before his death in 1968.

In the motion filed Monday, Gladson called the handling of the case “a complete breakdown of the criminal justice system.”

“Even a casual review of the record reveals that these four men were deprived of the fundamental due process rights that are afforded to all Americans,” Gladson wrote. “Given these facts today, no fair-minded prosecutor would even consider filing these charges and no reasonable jury would convict. The evidence strongly suggests that a sheriff, a judge, and prosecutor all but guaranteed guilty verdicts in this case.

“These officials, disguised as keepers of the peace and masquerading as ministers of justice, disregarded their oaths, and set in motion a series of events that forever destroyed these men, their families, and a community.”

Ifapprovedbyajudge,themotion would dismiss the convictions against Greenlee and Irvin and the indictments against Shepard and Thomas, whose deaths prevented them from having a proper trial.

In 2017, years after the final member of the Groveland Four died, state legislators issued a resolution formally apologizing to the men. In December 2018, then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct a review of the case. The following January, Gov. Ron DeSantis granted posthumous pardons for all four men.

In July, the FDLE review ended and was forwarded to Gladson’s office, leading to Monday’s motion.

The motion will be heard by Lake County Circuit Court Administrative Judge Heidi Davis.

MATERIALS FROM NAACP RECORDS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, VISUAL Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall, far left, and jailer Reuben Hatcher with Walter Irvin, Charles Greenlee and Samuel Shepard, who along with Ernest Thomas were known as the Groveland Four. Their story marks a major chapter in Florida’s troubled racial history.