George Stinney

George Stinney
Stinney's mug shot
Born	George Junius Stinney, Jr. (1929-10-21)October 21, 1929 Pinewood, South Carolina, United States
Died	June 16, 1944(1944-06-16) (aged 14) Columbia, South Carolina, United States
Criminal penalty	Death by electric chair
Criminal status	Executed (1944) Conviction vacated (2014)
Conviction(s)	First-degree murder (vacated)

George Junius Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944), was a 14 year old African-American convicted of murder as a result of a racially-biased and discriminatory trial 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 less than 10 minutes, during a one-day trial, by an all-white jury of the first-degree murder of two white girls: 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 was recorded of the brief trial. He was denied appeal and 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 vacated 70 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 Amendment rights had been violated. The judgment noted that while Stinney may in fact have committed the crime, the prosecution and trial were fundamentally flawed.

In 1944 George Junius Stinney, Jr. lived in Alcolu, Clarendon County, South Carolina. The 14-year-old African-American boy lived with his father, George Stinney, Sr., mother Aime, brothers Charles, age 12, and John, age 17, and sisters Katherine, age 10, and Aime, age 7. George Sr. worked at the town's sawmill, and the family lived in housing provided by George Sr.'s employer. Alcolu was a small, working-class mill town, where white and black neighborhoods were separated by railroad tracks. The town was typical of small Southern towns of the time, with separate schools and churches for white and black residents, who rarely interacted.