Innocence
Posthumous Pardons
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 20th 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).
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 50th 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.