Lee and Pitts

Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts, both blacks, were convicted of the robbery and murders of two white gas station attendants. The murders occurred on August 1, 1963 in Port St. Joe, Florida. While no physical evidence linked them to the deaths, the prosecution used their own confessions, which were beaten out of them, and they also used the testimony of an alleged eyewitness. The defendants also suffered from having incompetent defense counsel.

A few weeks after they were sentenced to death, a white man arrested for another gas station robbery confessed to the murder for which Lee and Pitts were convicted. When he learned of this confession, the local sheriff wanted nothing to do with it, saying, "I already got two niggers waiting for the chair in Raiford for those murders." A polygraph examiner who had heard the white man confess took the matter to the press, and soon a new trial was ordered, at which Lee and Pitts were again convicted.

Some time after the second conviction, the alleged eyewitness recanted her testimony and the state Attorney General admitted that the state had unlawfully suppressed evidence. The defendants were released in 1975 when they received a full pardon from Governor Askew, who stated he was "sufficiently convinced that they were innocent." In 1998, the Florida Legislature awarded the defendants $500,000 each in compensation.

ee also

List of exonerated death row inmates

References

* [http://www.patrickcrusade.org/wrongful.htm Patrick Crusade]
* [http://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/Publications/truelyreport.pdf Florida Legislature Report]