WEBVTT - #403 Jason Flom with Gilbert King on the Groveland Four 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.360 On July fifteenth, nineteen forty nine, Norma and Willie Paget 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.240 went out for a night on the town. According to 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.239 the couple, during their ride home, car trouble forced them 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.560 to stop on the side of the road. The following morning, 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:20.639 Norma Paget turned up in a nearby town alone. Once 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.480 Willie was located, the couple told the local sheriff that 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.840 while they were stranded, four black men had overpowered Willy 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.040 and raped Norma, although a physician's findings as well as 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.480 a witness account did not support this narrative. Three local 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:39.239 young men were apprehended, Walter Irvin, Sam Shepherd, and Charles Greenley. 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.360 An associate of Greenley's named Ernest Thomas was killed while 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.560 being pursued through a swamp by police and an angry mob. 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.040 When Sam Shepherd and Charles Greenley both gave confessions, the 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.520 growing mob called for the sheriff to produce the three 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.200 young men to be lynched, but the sheriff quelled the 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.280 crowd with a promise that a jury trial would send 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:15.520 them to their death. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.560 back to Wrongful Conviction, where we're covering the case of 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.119 the Groveland four Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.440 Walter Irvin, a Politzer Prise winning book Devil in the 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.520 Grove help secure their posthumous exaggeration. So we've asked, and 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.000 we're really privileged to have the author of that book 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.440 to join us in their stead. Our audience will recognize 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:39.800 him as the host of Bone Valley, the podcast series 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.039 about another wrongful conviction out of Lake County, Florida. So 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.960 it's my honor to welcome my great friend and colleague, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:47.920 Gilbert King. 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.560 Thanks, Jason, I'm really looking forward to this. Thanks for 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:51.080 having me on. 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.800 We're really happy to have you now, Gilbert. This case 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.360 took place in Groveland, Florida, and it's an agricultural town 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.040 relying mainly on Orange grove, and there was a pretty 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.120 clear racial divide between the white orange grove owners and 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.560 the mostly black farmhands. The local sheriff, Willis McCall was 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.240 took it upon himself and was really tasked with keeping 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.000 those black farmhands keeping their labor as cheap as possible. 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:17.840 And one of the ways he was doing this was 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.959 by running union organizers out of town. And don't forget 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.440 this was clan country during the late stages of Jim 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.920 Crow the years following World War Two. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.560 You know, something really interesting is happening in the country 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.680 at this time. You have more than a million black 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.720 servicemen who are coming back from overseas having fought in 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.840 World War Two, and many of them have experienced greater 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.560 freedoms and respect abroad in places like Germany, France, and England. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.560 And now they come back to the Jim Crow South 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.120 and they're sort of expected to slip quietly back into that, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.800 you know, second class citizenship. And two of the men 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.360 who had later become known as Groveland Four, served the military. 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.360 Then they came back to Groveland, and they continued to 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.240 wear their military uniforms, which was very common thing, a 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.320 reminder to the people in the South that you know, 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.440 I was willing to fight and die for this country, 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:06.800 put my life on the line. I deserve a little 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.480 more respect as an American citizen. But that was not 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:11.359 what was waiting for them when they returned to the 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:12.240 Jim Crow South. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.040 No, and these two young men you mentioned were twenty 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.760 two year olds Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin who grew 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.079 up in Groveland, and sam Shepherd's father, Henry Shepherd was 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.520 a bit of a thorn in the side of your 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.040 average white supremacist because he's really kind of stuck out 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.280 as a very successful farmer in what was once the 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:31.600 black part of the county. 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.480 Yeah, that's absolutely right, you know. And one of the 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.680 things that you know, Henry Shepherd did when he first 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.480 came to this land, it was swampland, so he drained 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.520 it personally himself, and he took the best land. But 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.720 by draining the land, it became a desirable part of 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.560 land in South Lake County. So now you had sort 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.560 of this forced desegregation where white people were starting to 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.320 move into this land and they resented the fact that 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.880 the black man had the best land in the area. 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.640 And so you started to see like them letting their 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.920 cows and their cattle go and Gray's on Henry Shepherd's land. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.200 Henry tried to complain, and Sheriff Willis McCall told him, 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.000 no black man has a right to file a complaint 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.000 against a white resident of Lake County. 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:12.520 And that wasn't the only racist law that the sheriff 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.640 made up. He specifically forbade black servicemen from doing what 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.480 Sam and Walter had been doing. Donning their uniforms and 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.200 demanding their well earned and well deserved respect. So Sam 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.640 and Walt were really already in the crosshairs of the 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.200 clan here. But what about these other two men of 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.400 the Groveland four? And I said, men, but one of them, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.839 let's face, it was just a kid from Tennessee, right. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.719 Right, Charles Greenley and Ernest Thomas. Charles Greenley was a 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.320 sixteen year old kid who met Ernest Thomas in Gainesville. 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.159 They were working at a fast food place together, and 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.400 Ernest said, come back to Lake County. You can work 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.560 in the Orange Groves. You can make some money. They 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.359 didn't even know Walter Irvin and Sam Shepard. It just 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.279 all got caught up in the middle of July of 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:56.760 nineteen forty nine. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.839 Yes, July fifteenth, to be exact, when sixteen year old 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.640 Rarles Greenley had been arrested for sleeping at a train station. 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.520 Earlier on in the evening, twenty six year old Ernest 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:07.440 Thomas was at home with his family in a black 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.880 part of town Stucky Still, and then Sam and Walter 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.000 had gone out drinking in nearby Orlando before returning to Groveland. Now, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.320 what's the real story with the alleged victims. 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.200 What had happened was a young couple by the name 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.080 of Norma Paget and her husband, Willie, had only been 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.320 married for about six months, and there was rumors going 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.359 around town that Willy was an abusive husband to Norma, 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.080 and the families kind of wanted them to separate, didn't 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.440 think they were a mature, good couple to be together, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.200 and so they separated for a few months just into 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:42.480 their marriage, and on July fifteenth, nineteen forty nine, they 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.760 decided to sort of give it another chance and go 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.400 out dancing, and so Willy picks up a bottle of whiskey. 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.480 They go out to an American Legion hall in Lake County, Florida, 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.839 start dancing, and shortly after midnight, Willy and Norma take 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.800 off in Willy's car and they're going to go out 0:05:58.800 --> 0:05:59.440 for a snack. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.160 Now we're not exactly sure what happened next, but they 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.919 allegedly had some car trouble pulled over, and what we 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.640 do know for sure is that Norma was spotted the 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.840 following morning alone in front of a cafe. Now, it's 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.760 believed that Willie had gotten aggressive with Norma at some 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.640 point and violent and that they needed to make up 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.880 a story to cover for that fact. However, for now, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.080 let's stick with what is known. Starting with Norma. 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.359 At about six in the morning, she's seen in a 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.760 little town called Oka Humpka standing outside this cafe called 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.640 Bertov's Cafe. And so Lawrence Bertoff is like, this eighteen 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.520 year old kid works for his father's cafe. He looks 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.560 out the window and he sees this woman on the 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.840 side of the road, opens up the cafe, pours some coffee. 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.560 They talked for like fifteen minutes. He says, you know, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:48.760 she doesn't seem very upset. She just says, I'm looking 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.080 for my husband. We got separated the night before. She 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.640 doesn't say anything about being sexually assaulted or anything like that. 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:57.800 She basically just says, I need a ride to go 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.560 back and look for my husband. Lawrence put Norma in 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.839 the car and they start driving down the road where 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.120 the car broke down, and that's where they see Willie 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.560 Paget coming the other way in a car with a deputy. 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.760 Lawrence Bertoff sees Norma get out. She goes over to 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.920 her husband and that's it, and they drive off, and 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.720 the next thing we know Norma Paget has made the 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.360 accusations that four black men beat up her husband, took 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:26.000 her off, raped her, and then dropped her off on 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.239 the side of the road. So when she made those accusations, 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.280 Sheriff Willis McCall basically claimed the story from Norma because 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.880 she said, initially I couldn't identify them, it was too dark. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.320 Willis McCall said, well, I know exactly who they are, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.640 and he just rounded up people that he believed were 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.560 troublemakers in town. The first two he picked up were 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.120 Walter Irvin and Sam Shepard, are the ones that wore 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.880 their military uniforms after their service. But you know, because 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.360 Norma Paget said that it was four men, they had 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.680 to find two others, so Sheriff Willis McCall was kind 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.760 of scrambling. At that point. He finds Charles Greenley, who 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.880 just got into town sleeping at a train station twenty 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.160 something miles away. He got arrested for vagrancy, so they 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.160 arrest him and say he was part of it. And 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.040 then they find this other guy, Ernest Thomas, who was 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.080 supposedly with Charles Greenley that night. 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.200 And this is nineteen forty nine, five years before the 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.760 lynching of m at Till when any kind of alleged 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.240 impropriety for a black man or men toward a white 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.280 woman was met with extreme violence. Enormous Father coy Tyson 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.840 was a clan member. At this point, clan in the 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.920 region began to mobilize and descend upon Grovelin. While the 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.760 local clan had marched down to the Shepherd family's farm 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.079 and burned it to the ground. Sam Shepherd was already 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.200 in custody along with Walter Irvin and Charles Greenley, but 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.199 Ernest Thomas had not been rounded up yet. 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.280 Ernest Thomas he sees what's happening with all the clan 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.440 coming into town, and he flees up north to a swamp. 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.480 Sheriff Willis McCall puts together a posse of more than 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.600 one thousand men, and they go up to North Florida 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.679 and just hunt him down like a dog. Ernest Thomas 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.320 was executed in the swamps up there. One of the 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.400 corners reports said that his body was riddled with something 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.480 like four hundred slugs, and so that's pretty much how 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.520 the Groveland Four became the Groveland Three. 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.480 Then McCall and his deputies went back to the courthouse 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.280 where Sam, Walter and Charles were in custody. While a 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.360 bloodthirsty mob slowly began to amass on the courthouse steps. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.240 The deputies take the three young men down to the 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.679 basement of the Lake County Courthouse. It's a basement that 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.640 has a dirt floor with pipes hanging above. And so 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.160 what they do is they handcuff the defendants to the 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.400 pipe so that their hands are over their heads, and 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.360 they break these coke bottles on the ground and sprinkle 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.080 it below their feet, and they pull down their pants 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.319 and just start beating them with like rubber hoses and 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.520 god knows what else, punching them. So as they're beating 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:49.439 each man, they're having to move their feet around and 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.280 they're stepping on this broken glass. They beat these guys 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:56.400 so bad that Charles Greenley and Sam Shepard confess just 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.080 to stop the beating. Walter Irvin just passes out on 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.440 but he never confesses, he says. And then the sheriff 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:05.800 goes out on the courthouse steps and basically holds up 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.960 these white pieces of paper that are blank and says, yeah, 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.400 all three of them confessed. We got the guys. We're 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.600 going to be bringing them to trial. And you know, 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.679 within days of this, the Orlando Sentinel is putting out 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.920 these editorial cartoons with electric chairs calling for the death. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.280 And the gathering racist mob definitely wanted death, I mean 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.600 to be sure, but not by electric share. That didn't 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:28.920 seem to be good enough for them. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.920 They wanted vengeance. This was going to be a lynching. 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.880 And McCall recognized that he snuck the Groveland boys out 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:38.520 of the jail because he knew there was going to 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.280 be trouble, and he moved him up to Rayford State Prison. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.080 So when the klan shows up outside the courthouse, he 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.400 eventually strikes a deal and he says, okay, normous, Father 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.720 Coy and Willie Pageck can go up into the jail 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.439 and look around and see if they see the defendants. 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.480 And obviously these guys weren't there at this point, and 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.640 so that's how he was able to sort of tamp 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.560 down the mob. New York Times wrote a big story 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.360 about him the next day. It said, you know, fast 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.920 talking shriff prevents a lynching in Lake County. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.559 Yeah, he prevented a lynching, maybe, but the misdirected violence 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.440 that followed is reminiscent of the Tulsa race massacre of 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.560 nineteen twenty one, and when an angry white mob, spurred 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.120 on by a false allegation of sexual impropriety by a 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.840 black man against a white woman, burned down a thriving Tulsa, 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.400 Oklahoma community known as Black Wall Street and killed anyone 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.679 in everyone they could find. And this Groveland mob was 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:31.320 not all that different. 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.559 Right, And that's just a very common thing in the 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.800 Jim Crow South. It happened in Florida with Rosewood, It's 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.800 happened in a Koe, where these accusations just spark this 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.079 white violence, sometimes driving every black person out of these towns. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.959 In this particular case, the Ku Klux Klan started burning 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.760 down the homes in the black part of town called Stucky. Still, 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:54.440 what's really interesting is you have all these really wealthy 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:58.080 white citrus barons basically, and they don't want to see 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.080 a mass exodus of labor, so they're actually sending their 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.760 trucks in there and trying to move blacks in Lake 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.080 County to safety because they don't want what's happened in 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.760 other places like the Koe and Rosewood, where all of 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.520 a sudden you lose the black labor force that hits 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:16.320 them economically, so they're actually protecting them. And National Guard 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.000 had to come into Lake County to sort of stop 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.479 the violence. Is to stop the destruction of the black community. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.040 You know. It's then the clan starts turning on the 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.400 wealthy people, saying, if you talk to the FBI about this, 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.520 we're gonna burn down every building your own. You're not 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.679 safe either. And there's a very famous photograph of Sheriff 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.120 Willis McCall where he's out surveying the ruins, the ashy 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.000 ruins of these houses that were burned down the following night. On. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.560 What you later learned through FBI reports and informants was 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:47.520 that the sheriff himself, Willis McCall, was the one supervising 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.480 the clan about which houses to burn down. He was 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.560 on the scene the night before. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:53.800 Was he a clan member. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.560 He wasn't just a clan member. I mean informants in 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.320 the clan meetings would say Sheriff Willis McCall was the 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.440 one giving or giving him legal advice, telling him not 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.680 to talk to police. Sheriff Willis McCall was really trying 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.000 to have it both ways. 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.680 Right, So on a national stage, McCall appeared to be 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.679 a champion of even keeled justice, but locally he had 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.160 actually led the Klan in their bloodthirsty rampage through Stucky 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:22.440 Still and remember, this case and others like it represented 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.360 a slow shift away from lynching into a more sugar 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.400 coated form of white supremacy and white terrorism. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.600 What's really remarkable about this case is the transition from 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.920 lynchings to the death penalty, the way the death penalty 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.160 was used, and back then there was a capital offense 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.200 to be charged with the rape of a white woman. 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.120 I think in the state of Virginia there were forty 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.560 nine cases where a man was executed for rape. All 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.440 forty nine of those men were black men accused of 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:55.439 raping a white woman. 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.560 And you can see throughout the history of the death 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.160 penalty in this country how on evenly it has been applied. Now, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.319 if there's any silver lining to this story, it's that 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:10.360 the overwhelming destruction in Mayhem garnered the attention of the NAACP, 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:16.160 who sent none other than NAACP attorney Franklin Williams and 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.760 future Supreme Court Justice Thurgod Marshall, and they were there 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:21.800 to represent the Gwoveland III. 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.720 Franklin Williams showed up at the jail to interview these 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.280 men and got their statements, and he said he was 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.280 absolutely disgusted by what he saw. Three weeks after these beatings, 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.160 these men were still wearing the same clothes. There was 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.200 blood all over the clothes, welts in their head, teeth 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.240 were knocked out, they were viciously beaten, and now they're 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:41.680 going on trial for their lives. 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.680 The prosecutor, Jesse Hunter and Sheriff McCall already had the 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.400 tortured confessions and norma paget ready to identify them in court. 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.240 In addition, they had tried to shore up any other 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.800 potential witnesses, starting with the kid from the cafe, Lawrence Bertov. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.160 You know, he told the story that they were threatening to, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.200 you know, destroy his father's cafe if he didn't go 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.920 along with this. And his mother said, Lawrence, just tell 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.560 the truth, don't lie, just tell the truth. We'll deal 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.520 with all that. And he tries to tell the story 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.040 of what he observed, but it doesn't fit the state's narrative. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.800 So what does the state do? They hide Lawrence Bertoft 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.120 from the defense, basically get him to leave town. They 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.000 take all of the defendant's families and lock them up 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.000 in jail so that they can't share stories and talk 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.080 about alibis. I mean, these are the kind of things 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.480 that law enforcement could get away with in the South. 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.720 We learned this because I filed a FOYA on this 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.760 case to get all the FBI records. And if you 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.960 look at the FBI interviews with Norma Paget, they do 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:43.920 not match the story Norma Paget was telling at trial. 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.880 But of course the defense didn't even have access to 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.760 these FBI interviews either, so they never knew the whole story. 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:55.160 And then there's the doctor, right, doctor Jeffrey Beinneveld's. 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.560 Absolutely hours after this alleged attack, he does the medical 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.360 exam of Norma Paget, and I got my hands on 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.600 his report. He concluded that there was no evidence of 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.960 any kind of sexual assault to the degree of which 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.920 Norma Paget reported. What does the state do? Basically they 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.560 hide doctor Benevelt from the defense. Those are the kind 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.640 of things that Franklin Williams and Thurgood Marshall were contending with. 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.360 And this went to trial only about two months after 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.960 the alleged rape. In front of Judge Truman Fudge. Now 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.600 I'm going to take a wild guess and say that 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:28.240 this was an. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:29.720 All white jury, all white men. 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.360 Yes, yeah, And get this the prosecutor, Jesse Hunter. He 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:38.000 actually did not present Sam and Charles's tortured false confessions, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.960 which don't have to be Colombo to figure out that 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.600 he knew they were false, and that he actually thought 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.000 that the torture had been so extreme that the jury 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.920 might see through them, even this all white, all male jury. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.560 But instead they produced some plaster casts of Walter Irvin 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:58.880 shoeprints allegedly from the scene, which screams malfeasance and it 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.080 reeks of junk science. They also presented a pair of 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.199 Walter's genes, pointing to a stain and alleging that it 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.920 was quote a human stain unquote who's human stain? Though 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.359 what kind of fluid? They didn't even bother to say 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.800 that they probably didn't know. I think about the time 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.360 and place this was, but I understand that Groveland three 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.760 took the stand in their own defense right, starting with 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:20.480 Sam and Walter. 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.440 Sam Shepard and Walter Irvin completely denied it. Charles Greenley said, look, 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.359 I was on another side of town. I was locked 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.000 up in a jail for loitering. I don't know who 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.160 those Walter Irvin and Sam Shepard. I've never seen him 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:32.040 before in my life. 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.560 And with bertof hidden and any potential alibi witnesses locked 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:37.920 up and with no access to the FBI's interviews of 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.159 Norman Paget and barely two months to prepare in the 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.520 lead up to the trial, had the defense been able 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.720 to uncover anything meaningful or even helpful. 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:49.359 By this point, the defense sty had heard rumors that 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.600 this doctor had been out there and had done this exam, 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.080 and they tried to get their hands on the doctor 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.800 or FBI cooperation, but they were told that this was 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.560 still an investigation in progress and that they didn't have 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.040 rights to the doctor, his testimony, or even his reports. 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.640 This is how it was stacked against the Groveland three. 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.320 And really, what did any of this matter? Considering Norma 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.400 Paget was going to take the stand. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:15.920 Thurgood Marshall was told like the quickest way to send 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.359 your clients to the electric chair was if a black 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:20.639 man stood up in court and questioned the word of 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.080 a white woman. In fact, Thurgood Marshall had to hire 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.679 a white lawyer by the name of Alex Akerman to 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.760 come in. And so what they basically said is, we're 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.080 not saying that this didn't happen to you, miss Paget. 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.479 We're just saying that you've identified these suspects incorrectly. And 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.360 that was as far as they were willing to go. 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.719 And so when Norma Paget takes the stand, she points 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.760 out to the three black men sitting at the defense 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.560 table and refers to him as the n word for 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:48.640 each of them and basically says, those are the men 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.560 that rape me. By the time they came to the verdict, 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.480 Walter Irvin and Sam Shephard are sentenced to death by 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.520 electric chair. Charles Greenley, because of his age sixteen, was 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.840 given life on a chain game. Thurgod Marshall later said, 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.159 that's how you know the jury believed that your client 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.360 was innocent. In the South, they only get life in prison. 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.280 This episode is sponsored by marsh mc clennan, the world's 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.800 leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.600 and people. Its legal and compliance department provides pro bono 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.440 legal assistance and other support to underrepresentative communities and. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:43.680 Individuals Thurgod Marshall and his lawyers at the NAACP. They 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.160 understood the appellate process. What they also know is that 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.440 the State of Florida has committed some egregious violations of 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.840 the Constitution. The way Florida selected a grand jury. They 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.000 were pointing out black people in the community, inviting them in, 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.399 and then using peremptory strikes to get them off the jury. 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:02.840 The Supreme Court had already ruled that this was an 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.480 illegitimate way to select a jury. Marshall he also knew 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.560 that there was so much pre trial publicity assuming that 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.520 they were guilty and calling for executions, that there should 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:14.800 have been a change of venue. So that's what they 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.760 argued before the Supreme Court in nineteen fifty one. 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.439 This appeal was only for Sam and Walter, but not 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.800 for sixteen year old Charles Greenley. 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.600 And Marshall explained to Greenley, like, look, we could get 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:28.680 you in this appeal, and you could get a retrial, 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.280 and you might get convicted and sentenced to death next time, 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:33.719 because you're no longer a sixteen year old kid now 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.720 you're eighteen, and the jury might not have any sympathy 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.360 for you. So he persuades Greenley to not join the appeal. 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.359 So the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional violations and overturned 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.040 Sam and Walter's convictions and ordered them a new trial, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.879