Where did the justice go? The story of the Giles-Johnson case

the long version

For three Negro boys in Montgomery County, Maryland, the night of July 20, 1961 was the beginning of the nightmare. As usual, they had gone fishing in the Patuxent River. It was afterward about midnight in the nearby Lover's Lane-that the whole incredible sequence of events began. Before it was over, John and James Giles and Joe Johnson had spent nearly six years in prison, including twenty-two months on Death Row awaiting execution, for allegedly raping a white girl.