Posthumous Declarations of Innocence

This is non-com­pre­hen­sive list of indi­vid­u­als declared inno­cent after their deaths.

The ​“Martinsville 7” Receive Posthumous Pardons 70 Years After Their Executions in Virginia.

In 1949, sev­en young Black men were accused of the rape and beat­ing of a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia. The sev­en — Francis DeSales Grayson, Frank Hairston Jr., Howard Hairston, James Luther Hairston, Joe Henry Hampton, Booker T. Millner, and John Clabon Taylor — were inter­ro­gat­ed by police with­out the appoint­ment of legal coun­sel. Under threats that they would be released to a lynch mob if they denied involve­ment, each con­fessed to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the rape. After a suc­ces­sion of per­func­to­ry tri­als before all-white, all-male juries, each was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. They were exe­cut­ed in 1951 in the largest mass exe­cu­tion for rape in U.S. history.

Following years of advo­ca­cy from fam­i­ly mem­bers and oth­er advo­cates, the case gained renewed atten­tion on the sev­en­ti­eth anniver­sary of the exe­cu­tions, as Virginia con­sid­ered and then adopt­ed a bill to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty. The advo­cates con­tin­ued to push for guber­na­to­r­i­al action, and Governor Ralph Northam announced the posthu­mous par­dons on August 31, 2021, say­ing ​“This is about right­ing wrongs.” Northam’s par­dons did not address the ques­tion of inno­cence, but, Northam said, ​“they serve as recog­ni­tion from the Commonwealth that these men were tried with­out ade­quate due process and received a racial­ly biased death sen­tence not sim­i­lar­ly applied to white defendants.

The ​“Groveland Four” Posthumously Pardoned in Florida 70 Years After False Rape Accusation.

On January 11, 2019, the Florida Clemency Board unan­i­mous­ly grant­ed posthu­mous par­dons to the ​“Groveland Four,” four young African-American men false­ly accused of rap­ing a white teenag­er in Lake County, Florida in 1949. 

Charles Greenlee, Ernest Thomas, Walter Irvin, and Samuel Shepherd were charged with rap­ing 17-year-old Norma Padgett. Thomas escaped from cus­tody but was hunt­ed down and mur­dered by an angry mob. He was report­ed­ly shot 400 times. White mobs burned and shot at the homes of black fam­i­lies, many of whom fled and nev­er returned. Greenlee, Irvin, and Shepherd were beat­en until they false­ly con­fessed to the crime. All-white juries con­vict­ed them, sen­tenc­ing World War II vet­er­ans Irvin and Shepherd (pic­tured, right) to death and Greenlee (pic­tured, left), who was only 16 years old, to life in prison. 

Represented by Thurgood Marshall before the U.S. Supreme Court, Irvin’s and Shepherd’s con­vic­tions were unan­i­mous­ly over­turned in 1951. Shortly after the rever­sal, Lake County Sheriff Willis V. McCall shot the two hand­cuffed men while he was dri­ving them to a court appear­ance, and posed for a pho­to in front of their prone bod­ies. McCall claimed that he had act­ed in self-defense. Shepherd died. Irvin sur­vived by play­ing dead until oth­ers arrived at the scene. He was retried and once again sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury but received a last-minute reprieve when the pros­e­cu­tor expressed doubt as to his guilt. His sen­tence was then com­mut­ed to life in prison. Greenlee and Irvin were both even­tu­al­ly paroled, but Irvin died just one year after his release. Greenlee died in 2012. 

South Carolina Pair Exonerated 94 Years After Execution — The South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services vot­ed 7 – 0 to par­don Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin for the 1913 mur­der of for­mer Confederate Army vet­er­an John Q . Lewis. The pair were exe­cut­ed in 1915 for the mur­der after anoth­er man, Monk Stephenson, plead guilty and received a life sen­tence in exchange for impli­cat­ing the Griffins. ​“Stevenson lat­er told a fel­low inmate that he had impli­cat­ed the Griffin broth­ers because he believed they were wealthy enough to pay for legal coun­sel, and as such would be acquit­ted,” said legal his­to­ri­an Paul Finkelman. Two oth­ers, Nelson Brice and John Crosby, were also exe­cut­ed for the crime. The pair were great uncles of nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed radio show host Tom Joyner. ​“It’s good for the com­mu­ni­ty. It’s good for the nation. Anytime that you can repair racism in this coun­try is a step for­ward,” Joyner said. (CNN​.com, October 15, 2009).

Georgia Board to Pardon Woman 60 Years After Her Execution - The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles in August 2005 issued a for­mal par­don for Lena Baker (pic­tured), the only woman exe­cut­ed in the state dur­ing the 20^th cen­tu­ry. The doc­u­ment, signed by all five of the cur­rent board mem­bers, will note that the parole board­’s 1945 deci­sion to deny Baker clemen­cy and allow her exe­cu­tion was ​“a griev­ous error, as this case called out for mer­cy.” Baker, an African American, was exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of Ernest Knight, a white man who hired her . Baker was tried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to die in one day by an all-white, all-male jury. Baker claimed she shot Knight in self-defense after he locked her in his grist­mill and threat­ened her with a met­al pipe. The par­don notes that Baker ​“could have been charged with vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter, rather than mur­der, for the death of E.B. Knight.” The aver­age sen­tence for vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter is 15 years in prison. Baker’s pic­ture and her last words are cur­rent­ly dis­played near the retired elec­tric chair at a muse­um at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 16, 2005).

Suffolk District Attorney Posthumously Dismisses Charges Against Two Co-defen­dants in Mob-Related Murder — In 1968, Joseph Salvati, Peter Limone, Henry Tameleo, and Louis Greco were con­vict­ed of a 1965 mur­der of a Massachusetts-mob mem­ber. Mr. Limone, Mr. Tameleo, and Mr. Greco were sen­tenced to death by Massachusetts’ elec­tric chair, but were spared in 1974 when Massachusetts abol­ished the death penal­ty and their sen­tences were com­mut­ed to life in prison. Mr. Salvati was sen­tenced to life in prison and was released in 1997, fol­low­ing a com­mu­ta­tion of his sen­tence. Mr. Tameleo and Mr. Greco died in prison, in 1985 and 1995, respec­tive­ly. At tri­al, the main wit­ness against the four men was Joseph Barboza, a hit man coop­er­at­ing with pros­e­cu­tors, who lat­er admit­ted that he had fab­ri­cat­ed much of his tes­ti­mo­ny against the four men. In 2001, Mr. Limone’s con­vic­tion was over­turned and the case against him was offi­cial­ly dropped, as a result of new evi­dence (Commonwealth v. Limone, 2001 Mass. Super. LEXIS 7 (2001)). FBI doc­u­ments revealed that infor­mants had told the FBI before the mur­der that the vic­tim would be killed, and by whom, as well as a mem­o­ran­dum after the crime that list­ed the men involved. In 2004, the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office posthu­mous­ly dis­missed charges against Mr. Greco, cit­ing the evi­dence used in Mr. Limone’s exon­er­a­tion. Three years lat­er, in 2007, the charges against Mr. Tameleo were also dropped.

(Find more infor­ma­tion on Mr. Limone’s exon­er­a­tion, here.)

Frank Lee Smith was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Florida in 1986 for the rape and mur­der of 8‑year-old Shandra Whitehead. Smith’s con­vic­tion was based pri­mar­i­ly on three ques­tion­able wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions. The first wit­ness iden­ti­fied Mr. Smith at tri­al ​“based on his shoul­ders,” while the sec­ond tes­ti­fied that he was ​“both­ered” by the line up he was shown because Mr. Smith did not seem as tall as the man the wit­ness remem­bered. The police assured him that every­one in the line-up was at least 6’ tall, but that was not true — Mr. Smith was 5’ 9” tall. The final wit­ness tes­ti­fied that the man she had seen was not wear­ing glass­es although Smith, who was legal­ly blind, wore thick glasses.

Mr. Smith con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, say­ing dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of his tri­al: ​“I didn’t do it…It real­ly hurt me to be accused of some­thing like this, when my mama was raped…and my mama was killed like that…How do you think I feel about a baby like that?” One wit­ness lat­er recant­ed her tes­ti­mo­ny and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Smith. In an affi­davit, she said, ​“While I was in the court­room telling about what I saw, I knew that the man on tri­al was too thin to be the same man I saw on the street.” When an inves­ti­ga­tor for Mr. Smith showed the wit­ness a pic­ture of a man named Eddie Mosley, she claimed she real­ized her mis­take. ​“When I looked at the pic­ture every­thing came back to me,” she said. ​“The man in the pho­to is with­out a doubt the man I saw. I know that he is not the same man who was on tri­al for the lit­tle girl’s mur­der. I am so sor­ry that the wrong man is in prison and sen­tenced to death. I had doubts in the court­room, but I was under so much pres­sure. Also, the state attor­ney told me about how dan­ger­ous the man was and how he need­ed to be locked up for­ev­er.” Regardless of the affi­davit, Mr. Smith’s con­vic­tion and sen­tence was affirmed in 1990.

Mr. Smith died on January 30, 2000, from pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. In July of 2000, Mr. Smith’s attor­neys and the state reached an agree­ment to obtain DNA test­ing. On December 11, 2000, the lab report­ed that Mr. Smith’s DNA did not match the DNA evi­dence found at the crime scene. Four days lat­er, the lab report­ed that the genet­ic mate­r­i­al was con­sis­tent with Eddie Mosley’s DNA. Mr. Smith was posthu­mous­ly exon­er­at­ed on December 15, 2000.

(Find more infor­ma­tion on Mr. Smith’s exon­er­a­tion, here)

From Professor Michael Radelet, University of Colorado:

In Illinois in 1893, Governor Peter Altgeld par­doned three of the Haymarket defen­dants, six years after four of their co-defen­dants had been hanged. An eighth defen­dant had tak­en his own life on the eve of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. Altgeld issued the par­dons because all eight ​“had been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and were inno­cent of the crime .…” P. AVRICH, THE HAYMARKET TRAGEDY 423 (1984).

In Massachusetts in 1977 (on the 50^th anniver­sary of their exe­cu­tions), Gov. Michael Dukakis apol­o­gized for the mas­sive due process vio­la­tions in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti.

In 1987, Nebraska Governor Bob Kerry par­doned William Jackson, who had been hanged exact­ly 100 years ear­li­er in Beatrice for the mur­der of a man who lat­er turned up alive.

In Maryland in 2001, Governor Paris Glendening issued a par­don to John Snowden, a Black man who was hanged in 1919 for the rape and mur­der of the wife of a promi­nent White busi­ness­man. Two key tri­al wit­ness­es had recant­ed their tes­ti­mo­ny and before the hang­ing, eleven of the twelve jurors had pled for mercy.

In 2009, South Carolina par­doned two African-American men, Thomas and Meeks Griffin, who had been elec­tro­cut­ed in 1915 for mur­der­ing a white Confederate War vet­er­an. They were con­vict­ed on the per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny of the actu­al mur­der­er, who false­ly fin­gered the men to save him­self from the executioner.