'Groveland Four' Posthumously Exonerated Over 70 Years After Being Wrongly Accused of Raping Woman

A group of four Black men accused and convicted of raping a white woman in 1949 have been posthumously exonerated, 72 years later.

Ernest Thomas, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin — who came to be known as the "Groveland Four" — were cleared by Circuit Court Judge Heidi Davis in Lake County, Florida, on Monday, CNN reported. The judge dismissed the indictments of Thomas and Shepherd and vacated Greenlee and Irvin's convictions, per CNN.

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.

Aaron Newson, who is a nephew of Thomas, said he and his family were "blessed" to have Thomas cleared, according to NPR.

"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."

The four men were accused of rape by Norma Padgett, who was 17 at the time. Padgett, who is now in her 80s, accused the four men of abducting and raping her when she and her husband experienced car trouble while driving through Groveland, Florida, in 1949, according to NBC News.

Thomas was killed by a mob of over 1,000 men and shot hundreds of times after Padgett's accusations, according to NPR. In 1951, Shepherd was shot and killed by Sheriff Willis McCall when the sheriff was driving him and Irvin to their second trial. Irvin was also shot by the sheriff, who wounded him, per NPR. McCall claimed self defense.

Greenlee died in 2012 and Irvin died in 1969, a year after being granted parole.

According to the New 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, the Times reported, 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.

The dismissal comes after the "Groveland Four" were pardoned by Florida in 2019.

"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.