‘Scottsboro Boys’ pardoned in Alabama

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama's parole board wrote a new ending for the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" rape case Thursday by approving posthumous pardons more than 80 years after the arrests.

The board made the unanimous decision during a hearing in Montgomery for three black men whose convictions were never overturned in a case that came to symbolize racial injustice in the Deep South in the 1930s.

"Today, the Scottsboro Boys have finally received justice," Gov. Robert Bentley said.

Nine black males were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931. The men were convicted by all-white juries, and all but the youngest defendant was sentenced to death....