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A group of four Black men accused and convicted of raping a white woman in 1949 have been posthumously exonerated, 72 years later.
While the four men have since died, their families celebrated the news on Monday.
“For 72 years the families have been living with this and traveling with this journey waiting for today,” State Attorney Bill Gladson said on Monday following the hearing, per CNN.
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Aaron Newson, who is a nephew of Thomas, said he and his family were “blessed” to have Thomas cleared, according toNPR.
“We are blessed. I hope that this is a start because lot of people didn’t get this opportunity. A lot of families didn’t get this opportunity. Maybe they will,” he said. “This country needs to come together.”
Greenlee died in 2012 and Irvin died in 1969, a year after being granted parole.
According to theNew York Times, Gladson, said that evidence “strongly suggests that the sheriff, the judge and the prosecutor all but ensured guilty verdicts in this case.”
Additionally, theTimesreported, the grandson of the state’s attorney that prosecuted the case told investigators that he found correspondence in his grandfather’s law office that indicated the prosecutor and judge believed the rape allegations were false.
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“For seventy years, these four men have had their history wrongly written for crimes they did not commit,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement at the time, per CNN. “As I have said before, while that is a long time to wait, it is never too late to do the right thing. I believe the rule of law is society’s sacred bond. When it is trampled, we all suffer. For the Groveland Four, the truth was buried. The Perpetrators celebrated. But justice has cried out from that day until this.”
The families of the men also received a formal apology from the Florida Legislature in 2017.
source: people.com
