ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Florida's incoming agriculture commissioner says she wants to get a formal pardon for four young African-American men who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in what is considered one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Jim Crow-era Florida.
Nikki Fried said in a statement Monday she would bring up the Groveland Four's case at the first Florida Cabinet meeting she attends and try to expedite a review that could lead to their posthumous pardon at a clemency board hearing.
As agriculture secretary, Fried is one of four members on the state's clemency board, which also includes the governor, attorney general and chief financial officer.
The four men were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in the central Florida town of Groveland in 1949.
(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
