Biography
Wilbert Lee was one of two Black men, with Freddie Lee Pitts, falsely convicted of the August 1963 kidnapping, robbery and murder of two white gas-station attendants in Port St. Joe, Florida. They were convicted with no material evidence, on confessions obtained through beatings and threats, and sentenced to death in 1963; in 1968 a key witness admitted she had lied under police threat. Lee, a pulpwood cutter at whose home Pitts had attended a party that night, confessed after being told his wife would be harmed. After the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new grand jury in 1969 (Black citizens had been excluded), an all-white jury again convicted them in 1972 and they were sentenced to be electrocuted — even though another man, Curtis Adams Jr., had confessed to the killings. They were finally pardoned by Governor Reubin Askew in 1975. Documented in The Black Panther (April 27, 1974).
The newspaper reports Governor Reubin Askew’s recommendation of a pardon after twelve years in custody. A recommendation is distinguished from the later completed pardon process and actual discharge; no new release date is inferred from this issue. The Black Panther, September22,1975, volumeXIVnumber1, original PDF page 9. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/black-panther/14%20no%201%201-28%20sep%2022%201975.pdf#page=9
The Florida Legislature’s case history records an original death sentence on August 28, 1963 and a death sentence after retrial on March 15, 1972. W. L. Fitzpatrick presided over the original proceedings and D. R. Smith over the retrial. The report distinguishes the September 11, 1975 clemency decision from physical release.
Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 89; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 90; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 91; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 92; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 96; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 97; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 98.
A February 1977 interview described Pitts and Lee as active opponents of capital punishment after their release; the Pitts and Lee Justice Fund was also campaigning for compensation.
