Groveland Case Victim Again Appeals to Supreme Court

    PRESS RELEASE 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 
107 WEST 43 STREET *© NEW YORK 36, N. Y. 
ARTHUR B. SPINGARN 
President 

WALTER WHITE 
Secretary 
ALLAN. KNIGHT CHALMERS 
Treo#OR RELEASE: November 7, 1953 

GROVELAND CASE VICTIM AGAIN 
APPEALS TO SUPREME COURT 

JUdson 6-8397 
THURGOOD MARSHALL 
Director and Counsel 

ROBERT L. CARTER 
Assistant Counsel 

ARNOLD DE MILLE 
Press Relations 

November 7, 1953 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7.-- Petition for an appeal of the second conviction of Walter 

Lee Irvin, sole surviving defendant in the famous Groveland case was filed with the 

United States Supreme Court today by NAACP attorneys in behalf of the twice convicted 

farmhand. 

The appeal is the second taken to the high court by NAACP attorneys to set aside 

the convictions and death sentences of Irvin for allegedly raping a white farmwife on 

the grounds that he was denied due process of the law. 

Irvin is one of the three Negro youths originally charged with the alleged rape 

of the Groveland woman and convicted in 1949. Two of them, Irvin and Samuel Shepherd, 

were sentenced to death. The third youth, Charles Greenlee, then 16, was given life 

imprisonment. He did not appeal and is still serving time in the Florida penitentiary. 

A fourth youth, Ernest Thomas, was shot to death by a sheriff's possee before ever 

reaching the courtroom. 

The first conviction and death sentence of Irvin and Shepherd were taken to the 

U. S. Supreme Court by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peaple. 

The high court ordered a new trial in April, 1951. Justice Robert H. Jackson, in his 

coneurring opinion, stated that the events surrounding the trial did not "meet any 

civilized conception of due process of law." 

On the eve of the new trial, November 6, 1951, Shepherd was shot to death and 

Irvin seriously injured by the sheriff while he was transporting the two men from 

the state penitentiary. 

The second trial was held in ocala early in 1952. After one hour and twenty-three 
minutes deliberation, the all-white jury found Irvin "guilty" and he was again 
sentenced to the electric chair by Judge Truman J. Futch. 

NAACP attorneys for Irvin appealed the conviction to the Florida State Supreme 
Court and cited twenty-two errors committed by the lower court in convicting and 
sentencing Irvin the second time. Most glaring were the refusal of the lower court 
to admit into evidence a public opinion poll showing that the people in the county 
of the trial were prejudiced against the convicted man, and the refusal of the court 
to order a mistrial after the State's Attorney had made prejudicial remarks to the 
jury, plus the introduction into evidence of articles seized by arresting officers 
without a search warrant. 

The Florida high court denied the appeal and affirmed Irvin's conviction on June 
23, 1953. On July 27, the court also denied a petition by NAACP lawyers for a rehearing 

In the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, NAACP lawyers for Irvin are again ask- 
ing for a reversal of the conviction and death sentence on the grounds that he was, 
for the second time, denied due process of law. Attorneys are Thurgood Marshall, 
Director of NAACP Legal Defense, Jack Greenberg of New York, and Paul Perkins of 
Orlando, Fla.