George Stinney | |||
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Born | George Junius Stinney, Jr. October 21, 1929 Pinewood, South Carolina, United States | ||
Died | June 16, 1944 (aged 14) Columbia, South Carolina, United States | ||
Criminal penalty | Death by electric chair | ||
Criminal status |
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Conviction(s) | First-degree murder (vacated) | ||
George Junius Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944), an African-American, age 14, was convicted at a flawed trial of murder in 1944 in his home town of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was the youngest person in the United States in the 20th-century to be sentenced to death and to be executed.
Stinney was convicted in 1944 in a one-day trial of the first-degree murder of two whitegirls: 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames. After being arrested, Stinney was said to have confessed to the crime. There was no written record of his confession apart from notes provided by an investigating deputy, and no transcript of the brief trial. He was executed by electric chair.
Since Stinney's conviction and execution, the question of his guilt, the validity of his reported confession, and the judicial process leading to his execution have been extensively criticized.
A group of lawyers and activists investigated the Stinney case on behalf of his family. In 2013 the family petitioned for a new trial. On December 17, 2014, his conviction was posthumously vacated70 years after his execution, because the circuit court judge ruled that he had not been given a fair trial; he had no effective defense and his Sixth Amendmentrights had been violated. The judgment noted that while Stinney may in fact have committed the crime, the prosecution and trial were fundamentally flawed.
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"Contemplate that if Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death. Not a Sovereign who could be said to be in hands of Ministers, like Kaiser. This man is the mainspring of evil. Instrument - electric chair, for gangsters no doubt available on lend-lease." |