From Death Row to Freedom: The Struggle for Racial Justice in the Pitts-Lee Case - Softcover

Phillip A. Hubbart (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813080134 ISBN 13: 9780813080130

Publisher: University Press of Florida, 2023

Synopsis

An insider’s account of a wrongful conviction and the fight to overturn it during the civil rights era

This book is an insider’s account of the case of Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee, two Black men who were wrongfully charged and convicted of the murder of two white gas station attendants in Port St. Joe, Florida, in 1963, and sentenced to death. Phillip Hubbart, a defense lawyer for Pitts and Lee for more than 10 years, examines the crime, the trial, and the appeals with both a keen legal perspective and an awareness of the endemic racism that pervaded the case and obstructed justice.

Hubbart discusses how the case against Pitts and Lee was based entirely on confessions obtained from the defendants and an alleged “eye witness” through prolonged, violent interrogations and how local authorities repeatedly rejected later evidence pointing to the real killer, a white man well-known to the Port St. Joe police. The book follows the case’s tortuous route through the Florida courts to the defendants’ eventual exoneration in 1975 by the Florida governor and cabinet.

From Death Row to Freedom is a thorough chronicle of deep prejudice in the courts and brutality at the hands of police during the civil rights era of the 1960s. Hubbart argues that the Pitts-Lee case is a piece of American history that must be remembered, along with other similar incidents, in order for the country to make any progress toward racial reconciliation today.

Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About this title

About the Author

Phillip A. Hubbart served for 19 years as a judge on the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida; 12 years as a public defender in Miami, Florida, and Washington, D.C.; and over 30 years as an adjunct professor of law in Miami. From 1965 to 1975, he served as a defense attorney for Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813080134
• ISBN 13: 9780813080130
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 364