{"id":156598,"date":"2026-02-15T21:02:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/156598\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T21:02:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:02:06","slug":"senators-back-compensation-for-groveland-four-families-tallahassee-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/156598\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators Back Compensation For \u2018Groveland Four\u2019 Families \u2013 Tallahassee Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n

A proposal to compensate the families of the \u201cGroveland Four\u201d is headed to the Senate floor, while the House has yet to act on the effort.<\/p>\n

The Appropriations Committee on Thursday backed the proposal (SB 694) after $4 million was added to the measure that seeks to compensate the families of Ernest Thomas, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin.<\/p>\n

The four African-American men were falsely accused in 1949 of raping a white woman in Lake County in what became one of the most-notorious cases from the state\u2019s Jim Crow era. They were posthumously pardoned in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill is about justice, not merely remembered as history, but carried forward as responsibility,\u201d said bill sponsor Ocoee Democrat LaVon Bracy Davis.<\/p>\n

The money would be divided equally among the families of the four, Bracy Davis said.<\/p>\n

The House version of the bill (HB 6523), which doesn\u2019t include a dollar amount, has yet be heard in committee.<\/p>\n

Thomas was killed by a posse in Madison County after the rape accusation. The three other men were beaten to coerce confessions before they were convicted by an all-white jury.<\/p>\n

Greenlee, at 16, was given a life sentence. Shepherd and Irvin, both U.S. Army veterans, were sentenced to death. Shepherd and Irvin were later shot, with Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall claiming the two handcuffed men tried to flee while being transported to a new trial that had been ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court due to adverse pretrial publicity. Shepherd died, preventing a retrial. Irvin survived but was retried and convicted.<\/p>\n

Then-Gov. Leroy Collins commuted Irvin\u2019s sentence to life in prison. Irvin was paroled in 1968 and died a year later. Greenlee, released from prison in the early 1960s, died in 2012.<\/p>\n

The case gained renewed attention after a 2013 book about the incident \u2014 \u201cDevil in the Grove,\u201d by Gilbert King \u2014 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.<\/p>\n

In January 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet \u2014 at the time Attorney General Ashley Moody, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis \u2014 pardoned the four men.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Lake County Circuit Court Administrative Judge Heidi Davis granted a motion that restored the constitutional rights of the four to the \u201cpresumption of innocence.\u201d Davis\u2019 action vacated the convictions of Greenlee and Irvin and dismissed the indictments against Thomas and Shepherd.<\/p>\n

Norma Padgett Upshaw, who remained adamant that the four men were the ones involved in her assault, died in 2024.<\/p>\n

Appearing before DeSantis and the Cabinet in January 2019, Padgett Upshaw told the panel, \u201cI\u2019m begging you not to give them pardons because they done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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