FLORIDA, USA — State Attorney Bill Gladson on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the indictments and set aside judgments and sentences of four Black men who were wrongfully accused of rape in 1949.
If granted by the Lake County Circuit Court, then the men, known as the Groveland Four, would be officially recognized as innocent more than 70 years after the initial accusations.
In 2019, the state pardoned the men, who were accused of raping a white woman under dubious circumstances. One was hunted down by a posse of about 1,000 men and shot more than 400 times.
Three others were convicted. After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a new trial in 1951, a sheriff shot two of them, claiming the handcuffed men were trying to escape. One died.
The two surviving men were eventually paroled.
In 2017, the House and Senate voted unanimously to formally apologize to the men's families and asked then-Gov. Scott to pardon them. He took no action.