Nearly 70 years ago, four black men in Lake County, Florida, were accused and convicted of raping a white woman. Today, Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Earnest Thomas have received posthumous pardons from the state.
The men, commonly referred to as the “Groveland Four,” were accused of raping a 17-year-old in 1949. Greenlee, Irvin, and Shepherd were beaten into confessing after their arrest. According to the Innocence Project, documents from the case revealed that there was no evidence of a sexual assault. In addition to the documents, no physical evidence of the men’s involvement was presented in court, including a medical examination of the accuser. . . .
A former FBI agent who testified on Irvin’s behalf said prosecutors manufactured evidence. Despite this, Irvin was convicted a second time for the rape.
Sounds like a college campus today.