TAVARES, Fla. – A second central Florida jurisdiction has passed a resolution seeking the exoneration of four African-American men who were accused of raping a white woman in one of the great miscarriages of justice in the pre-civil rights years.
The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1TnSk8G ) reports that Lake County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to support legislation to exonerate the Groveland Four.
The resolution comes weeks after Groveland city officials did the same thing.
It requests that Gov. Rick Scott and his Cabinet pardon Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irvin, Charles Greenlee and Ernest Thomas. A resolution exonerating the men was introduced in the Florida Senate.
None of the men is alive. Their relatives still live in the central Florida community that six decades ago was a major producer of citrus but today is an Orlando suburb.
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Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
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