Groveland Case

The Groveland Case refers to events that took place in Groveland, Florida, from 1949 to 1951 and the resulting prosecutions related to four African-American men being accused of rape of a young white woman in 1949. One man was shot by a posse after having fled the area; the other three were quickly arrested but denied being in the area of the alleged rape. They were convicted by an all-white jury; one was sentenced to life as he was 16 years old; the other two were sentenced to death by electric chair.

In 1949, Harry T. Moore, the executive director of the Florida NAACP, organized a campaign against the wrongful conviction of three African Americans, including a 16-year-old, for the rape of a young white woman in Groveland. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a new trial. Soon afterward, Sheriff Willis V. McCall of Lake County, Florida, shot two of the men while they were in his custody, killing one and seriously wounding Irvin. At the second trial, Irvin was represented by Thurgood Marshall as special counsel, of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Irvin was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death. In 1955 his sentence was commuted to life by the Florida governor, and in 1968 he was paroled. All four men were exonerated by the Florida House of Representatives in April 2017.

On July 16, 1949, Norma Padgett, a 17-year-old Groveland, Florida white woman, accused four black men of rape, testifying that she and her husband were attacked when their car stalled on a rural road near Groveland. The next day, 16-year-old Charles Greenlee, Sam Shepherd, and Walter Irvin were arrested and put in jail pending trial. Ernest Thomas fled the county and avoided arrest for several days.

A Sheriff's posse of over 1000 armed men, found, shot and killed him about 200 miles northwest during a lengthy chase through the swamps. McCall was in the area when Thomas was killed, but a coroner's inquest was unable to determine exactly who killed the suspect.

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