Biography
Walter Woodard was a Black tenant farmer arrested in Pompano, Florida, on May 14, 1933, during the roundup that followed the robbery and murder of Robert Darsey. Police coerced confessions from Woodard and three other men, and all four received death sentences. Their case became Chambers v. Florida, in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in February 1940. Woodard remained imprisoned until his acquittal in March 1942, when the prosecution could not establish his guilt without the confession.
Family background and continued confinement
Richard Brust’s dissertation describes Woodard as 33 at his May 1933 arrest. He came from Screven, Georgia, and had married Jack Williamson’s sister in 1927. He worked on the Blount farm and shared employer-provided housing with Williamson and Izell Chambers.
After the Supreme Court reversed the convictions, Judge Curtis E. Chillingworth dismissed the original indictment on December 11, 1940 because African Americans had been excluded from the grand jury. Palm Beach deputies rearrested the defendants on the same charge when they were due to be released. A new indictment followed on March 11, 1941, and the Florida Supreme Court upheld it on November 4.
Woodard, Williamson and Davis were acquitted and released from court on March 9, 1942. Woodard and Williamson told the Fort Lauderdale Daily News that they intended to return to their family homes in Georgia. Brust found no records of their subsequent lives.
Source: Richard Brust, The Pompano Boys (University of Florida, 2022), pp. 39–40, 95–96 and 254–257.
