Maryland governor posthumously pardons 15-year-old boy, 33 other racial lynching victims

Maryland's governor has posthumously pardoned a 15-year-old boy and 33 other victims of racial lynching in the state dating between 1854 and 1933, saying they were denied legal due process against the allegations they faced. It was a first-of-its-kind pardon by a governor of a U.S. state.

Gov. Larry Hogan signed the order at an event Saturday honoring Howard Cooper, a 15-year-old who was dragged from a jailhouse and hanged from a tree by a mob of white men in 1885 before his attorneys could file an appeal of a rape conviction that an all-white jury reached within minutes. "My hope is that this action will at least in some way help to right these horrific wrongs and perhaps bring a measure of peace to the memories of these individuals and to their descendants and their loved ones," Hogan said.