44 pages • 1 hour read
Gilbert KingDevil in the Grove
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 19-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary: “Private Parts”
In the wake of the Moore bombing, Marshall is assigned an FBI agent to protect him during his stay in central Florida. Klan-affiliated officials in Florida continue to obstruct the FBI and NAACP in their investigations.
Greenberg and Akerman travel to Orlando, where KKK official Bill Hendrix is holding a rally urging his “rebel army” to fight in the event the Supreme Court outlaws segregation. Soon after, Hendrix is indicted for mailing defamatory postcards to journalists and politicians (286).
On February 11, 1952, Marshall and his team of lawyers (Greenberg, Akerman, and Paul Perkins) are driven to the Marion County Courthouse, the site of the retrial. Irvin is present although still suffering after-effects from the shooting.
The defense team raises a number of issues in turn. First, they petition Judge Futch to reverse his prior decision disallowing Marshall and Greenberg from representing Irvin. Fearing another reversal at the Supreme Court, Futch agrees to this.
Next, the defense team argues for a change of venue. Employing a recent academic study, they argue that Marion County’s prejudice precludes the possibility of a fair trial. Jesse Hunter, however, produces elderly black witnesses who claim that relations between blacks and whites in the county are excellent. The judge rules that the trial will go forward in Marion County (290).
Judge Futch and Governor Warren offer Irvin a life prison sentence instead of the electric chair if he pleads guilty. Irvin refuses to go along with this, insisting upon his innocence. Irvin’s mother, Dellia, accepts this.
Dellia next testifies, telling how Deputy Yates came to her house on the morning of July 16 and intimidated her into letting him confiscate Irvin’s clothes, without a search warrant. The defense attempts to argue that this was a violation of the law, but not until 1961 would the Supreme Court rule that evidence obtained in an illegal search is inadmissible in court (294).
Marshall worries that two of the defense witnesses—Lawrence Burtoft and Carol Alexander, a waitress who remembered seeing Irvin and Shepherd at a club on the night of July 15—will not be able to testify.
Willie and Norma Padgett testify, the latter looking tired and bone-thin. In cross examination, Akerman questions some notable parts of Willie’s testimony. During Norma’s testimony, Jesse Hunter guides and prompts her as she repeats her account of rape by four black men. Marshall prudently decides against having himself or any other black attorney cross-examine Norma before a white, male jury. Throughout, the defense’s tactic is not to question that the rape occurred but merely to raise reasonable doubt about Irvin’s involvement in it (299).
Deputy Yates testifies last. In his cross-examination, Akerman questions Yates’s qualifications to make the plaster casts he formed at the crime scene. Hunter scoffs at Akerman’s scientific objections, playing on the unsophistication of the jury. Finally, Judge Futch admits Irvin’s soiled pants as evidence, even though they were obtained without a search warrant and have not been examined in a laboratory.
Chapter 20 Summary: “A Genius Here before Us”
The fourth witness for the prosecution is Curtis Howard, who was operating his filling station on the night of July 15. He tells how he met the injured Willie Padgett, helped him find Norma, and met with Deputies Yates and Leroy Campbell. His testimony produces a contradiction, however: He claims that Willie had informed him of Norma’s rape, when only the abduction was known at that time.
Lawrence Burtoft, on military leave, takes the witness stand. The defense is relying on his testimony to blow Norma Padgett’s claims wide open. Burtoft testifies that Norma did not appear hurt on the morning of July 16, mentioned only kidnapping and not rape, and claimed not to be able to identify her kidnappers. Hunter and the prosecution try to destroy Burtoft’s credibility as a witness (308).
The defense team brings in as a witness Herman Bennett, a Miami-based criminologist. Bennett claims, using scientific evidence, that Deputy Yates’s plaster casts were faked. Hunter and Futch, however, attempt to dismiss Bennett as a “big-city windbag” whose testimony is irrelevant (312).
Assistant state attorney Sam Buie makes closing statements for the prosecution, and Marshall likewise for the defense. In his remarks, Marshall reminds the jurors of their responsibility and appeals to their common sense, bringing up new points in Irvin’s favor about his shoes and footprints.
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Colored Way”
Over the course of the trial, Hunter’s attitudes toward race and toward Thurgood Marshall have changed noticeably, as have those of Mabel Norris Reese. Hunter now admires Marshall a great deal, and Reese is beginning to doubt Irvin’s guilt. Hunter has also come deeply to distrust McCall and Yates.
Back in court, Akerman and Hunter make their closing arguments. Akerman focuses on the issue of identity, arguing that Norma could not have positively identified her attackers in the dark. Hunter makes a dramatic scene, appealing to the cherished ideal of “southern womanhood” and revealing that he has a fatal disease as a way to gain the jurors’ sympathy.
The jury finds Irvin guilty and makes no recommendation of mercy. The sentence: death by electrocution.
Marshall assures Dellia Irvin that he will keep on fighting for her son. He tells reporters that the NAACP will file for a new trial in Tavares.
Mabel Norris Reese, normally friends with Jesse Hunter, turns on him in anger for what he has done.
Chapter 22 Summary: “A Place in the Sun”
Newspapers, especially in the North, react with outrage to the verdict and in particular the lack of clemency.
Interviewed by reporters in prison, Irvin insists that the decision to plead not guilty was his alone; he believes that he still has a chance to be acquitted.
The NAACP hosts a benefit concert in New York to honor the memory of Harry Moore and his wife, raising more than fifty thousand dollars. The FBI is unable to solve their murder, but it does indict seven Klansmen in the high-speed chase that followed Franklin Williams and his colleagues out of Lake County.
The Supreme Court denies Irvin’s appeal for another trial, leaving Marshall and his team no other option but to try and stay the date of Irvin’s execution.
Marshall and the NAACP work hard on the desegregation case Brown v. Board, which they win in May 1954 to great celebration. After the decision comes down, Willis McCall forces a mixed-race family in his county to attend a Negro school even though they have always identified as white. Jesse Hunter, whose racial views have softened, intervenes to protect and win the case for the family. McCall becomes an outspoken voice in resistance to desegregation.
Buster Marshall is diagnosed with cancer and passes away in winter 1955, leaving Thurgood Marshall in grief and poor health.
Marshall succeeds in delaying Irvin’s execution until Florida’s governor-elect, the reform-minded LeRoy Collins, takes office. Collins initiates a secret investigation into the Groveland Boys case, focusing on the lack of a medical exam, lack of scientific analysis of evidence, and difficulty in identifying the attackers, as well as the shooting of Shepherd and Irvin. Thousands of letters from clergymen and other citizens urge Collins to pardon Irvin; one of the letters is from Jesse Hunter.
From a Florida minister, Collins receives the anti-death-penalty petition book circulated by Miss De Forest in Groveland. He sees that among the hundreds of signatures of Lake County residents declaring their opposition to capital punishment is Norma Padgett’s.
Epilogue
Collins commutes Irvin’s death sentence to life imprisonment, declaring that the state “did not establish the guilt of Walter Lee Irvin in an absolute and conclusive manner” (353). In order to offset any political backlash, Collins also accuses the NAACP of defending Irvin simply because he was black. Marshall responds that Collins has vindicated everything that the NAACP has said all along, and that without their efforts Irvin would never have been spared.
Jesse Hunter passes away in February 1956. Willis McCall remains in place as sheriff of Lake County until 1972, when he is indicted for kicking to death a mentally handicapped black prisoner. Norma and Willie Padgett divorce in 1958.
Charles Greenlee serves his prison term honorably and is awarded a parole in 1960. He marries, raises a family, and builds a successful business (358). Walter Irvin is awarded parole in 1968 but is found dead in his car while attending a funeral in Lake County. The cause of death is reported as “natural causes,” but Mabel Norris Reese suspects that McCall ordered his murder.
In summation, the Groveland Boys case played a pivotal role in changing the face of American race relations and civil rights.
Chapter 19-Epilogue Analysis
The final group of chapters covers Walter Irvin’s retrial in Florida and its aftermath. A strident demonstration by the KKK in Orlando, witnessed by Greenberg from his hotel, prefaces the retrial. This sets the stage for the intense racially driven drama that will unfold.
These chapters illustrate the way race is an issue not just in the accusations, arrests, and imprisonment of African Americans but also in the handling of the trial itself. The Marion County courthouse, like that of Lake County, is segregated, with the black attendees occupying the balconies. Among the self-serving ploys of Judge Futch and Jesse Hunter is to call several elderly black witnesses to give (rather unconvincing) accounts of the good race relations in Florida. After their testimony, a minister in the audience implies that he considers the witnesses little better than Uncle Toms (290).
Throughout the trial, Marshall and his team must also tread carefully. A white woman’s word and chastity are considered sacrosanct, so they must avoid calling into question that the rape occurred (even though there is plenty of room for doubt), instead concentrating on the possibility of mistaken identity. As well, Marshall must tread carefully as a black man. If he speaks out too much, he will be considered “uppity,” while if he keeps silent, he might be viewed as a sinister manipulator of Akerman. As a black man, Marshall could not cross-examine Norma without serious consequences, so he declines to do this.
The defense case is hampered by many other factors, notably the absence of an alibi witness (Carol Alexander), the admission of illegally obtained evidence, and, crucially, the lack of medical testimony that would seriously put the rape into question. These factors underline the inequity in the case and the severe disadvantage of the defense side. There is a strain of anti-intellectualism on the prosecution side as Futch and Hunter scoff at scientific evidence and decline to give a thorough examination to items such as the pants Irvin wore, appealing instead to the simple “common sense” of the farmer jury. Marshall’s eloquent and philosophical concluding argument at the retrial—appealing to ethical American ideals—is a stark contrast to Hunter’s demagogic one, playing on the emotions and prejudice of the jury.
Marshall’s team perseveres despite feeling that everything is stacked against them. They do so because they believe in the rightness of their cause and have faith that the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, can redress the inequities that are produced in southern courts.
Irvin’s salvation ultimately depends on LeRoy Collins, the new governor of Florida, who promises to reform the state government. Although Collins voted against the Brown decision, there are signs that he is more conciliatory toward racial issues and willing to build a “New South” free from the old corruption and racism.
King ends the book with an affecting account of a white, Catholic, southern woman’s admiring letter to Marshall (“My dear Mr. Justice”) in the wake of Walter Irvin’s death. This ending drives home the way racial attitudes of many white Americans, particularly in the South, have changed as a result of the legal battles waged by Marshall and his peers.
