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THE BILL ITSELF

HB 6523

Descendants and Estates of Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas

VERSION H 6523 Filed · BACK TO THE SUMMARY · OFFICIAL RECORD

underlined language is being added; struck language is being deleted. Line numbers are the Legislature's own — the same ones amendments cite.

1 A bill to be entitled
2 An act relating to compensation of the descendants of
3 Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and
4 Ernest Thomas; providing that certain facts are found
5 and declared to be true; providing that a sum is
6 appropriated from the General Revenue Fund to the
7 Department of State for specified relief; providing
8 that specified persons are ineligible for further
9 compensation; providing an effective date.
11 WHEREAS, on July 16, 1949, a 17-year-old white woman and
12 her estranged husband reported to police that they had been
13 attacked and that she had been raped by four black men after the
14 car that she and her husband were riding in broke down on a
15 rural road outside Groveland, in Lake County, and
16 WHEREAS, despite the lack of physical evidence in the case
17 and the established alibis of the accused, Charles Greenlee,
18 Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas, the four men
19 were presumed guilty, and
20 WHEREAS, Mr. Irvin and Mr. Shepherd, both World War II
21 veterans, acknowledged that they had stopped by the broken-down
22 vehicle to see if they could assist the couple, but denied any
23 involvement in the alleged rape, and
24 WHEREAS, Mr. Greenlee, who was only 16 years old at the
25 time, and Mr. Thomas denied ever meeting the alleged victim and
26 her estranged husband, and
27 WHEREAS, after their arrest that evening, Mr. Greenlee, Mr.
28 Irvin, and Mr. Shepherd were severely beaten in the basement of
29 the county jail, and Mr. Greenlee and Mr. Shepherd were coerced
30 into confessing to the crime, while Mr. Irvin refused to admit
31 guilt, and
32 WHEREAS, Mr. Thomas, who fled the county, was shot to death
33 several days later in Madison County by members of a deputized
34 posse of armed men, resulting in more than 400 gunshot wounds,
35 and
36 WHEREAS, the three surviving men, Mr. Greenlee, Mr. Irvin,
37 and Mr. Shepherd, were tried and convicted in the case, with Mr.
38 Greenlee sentenced to life imprisonment due to his age and Mr.
39 Irvin and Mr. Shepherd sentenced to death, and
40 WHEREAS, Thurgood Marshall, then executive director of the
41 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, appealed the
42 convictions of Mr. Irvin and Mr. Shepherd to the United States
43 Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned the judgments on
44 April 9, 1951, and ordered a retrial, and
45 WHEREAS, seven months later, in November 1951, while
46 transporting Mr. Irvin and Mr. Shepherd from Florida State
47 Prison in Raiford to Tavares State Prison for a pretrial
48 hearing, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall and Deputy Sheriff
49 James L. Yates shot both men on a dirt road leading into
50 Umatilla, claiming that they had shot the handcuffed men in
51 self-defense when the two tried to escape, and
52 WHEREAS, Mr. Shepherd died at the scene as a result of his
53 wounds, but Mr. Irvin, who pretended to be dead, survived and
54 accused the sheriff and his deputy of attempted murder, but no
55 charges were ever brought against the officers, and
56 WHEREAS, despite Mr. Irvin having been retried and
57 convicted a second time of the crime and sentenced to death, his
58 sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1954 by then-Governor
59 LeRoy Collins, who was not convinced of Mr. Irvin's guilt, and
60 WHEREAS, in 1970, while visiting Lake County, Mr. Irvin,
61 who had been paroled 2 years earlier by then-Governor Claude
62 Kirk, was found dead in his car, and, while Mr. Irvin's death
63 was officially attributed to natural causes, Thurgood Marshall
64 reportedly doubted the circumstances surrounding Mr. Irvin's
65 death, and
66 WHEREAS, Mr. Greenlee, who was paroled in 1962 after
67 serving 12 years in prison, died in April 2012 at the age of 78,
68 and
69 WHEREAS, in 2017, the Legislature unanimously adopted House
70 Concurrent Resolution 631 acknowledging the grave injustices
71 perpetrated against Mr. Greenlee, Mr. Irvin, Mr. Shepherd, and
72 Mr. Thomas, apologizing to each of them and their families, and
73 urging the Governor and the Cabinet to perform an expedited
74 clemency review of their cases for the purpose of granting the
75 men full pardons, and
76 WHEREAS, on January 11, 2019, Governor DeSantis issued full
77 pardons, which were unanimously approved by the Board of
78 Executive Clemency, to Mr. Greenlee, Mr. Irvin, Mr. Shepherd,
79 and Mr. Thomas, and
80 WHEREAS, on November 22, 2021, the State Attorney's Office
81 of Lake County filed a motion in the Circuit Court of the Fifth
82 Judicial Circuit to dismiss the indictments of Mr. Shepherd and
83 Mr. Thomas and to set aside the convictions and sentences of Mr.
84 Greenlee and Mr. Irvin, which motion was granted, and
85 WHEREAS, the State of Florida recognizes an obligation to
86 equitably redress the injuries, damages, infringement of civil
87 rights, and loss of life that Mr. Greenlee, Mr. Irvin, Mr.
88 Shepherd, Mr. Thomas, and their families sustained as a result
89 of the events that transpired in Lake County, NOW, THEREFORE,
91 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
93 Section 1. The facts stated in the preamble to this act
94 are found and declared to be true.
95 A sum as specified in the General Section 2.
96 Appropriations Act is appropriated from the General Revenue Fund
97 to the Department of State for the relief of the descendants of
98 Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest
99 Thomas.
100 Section 3. A person compensated under this act is
101 ineligible for any further compensation related to the factual
102 situation described in this act.
103 Section 4. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law.