Innocent teen George Stinney was tried, convicted and executed in 83 days in Jim Crow south of 1944: ‘a truly unfortunate episode in our history’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

More than seven decades after South Carolina executed 14-year-old George Stinney, a judge has thrown out his conviction and cleared his name.

Stinney was accused of killing two white girls, Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, seven, who were found dead in a ditch on the black side of the racially segregated town of Alcolu, South Carolina, in March 1944. In the Jim Crow era of the South, Stinney was tried, convicted and executed within 83 days in the small mill town.

The case has cast a long shadow over South Carolina. Stinney’s surviving family, including two sisters and a brother, have long believed he was forced into a confession and made a scapegoat for a white community seeking vengeance for the violent murders of two white girls, found beaten in the head with an iron spike. In January, they launched a legal bid to overturn the verdict and testified at a two-day hearing.



In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, Judge Carmen Mullen described Stinney’s tragic case as “a truly unfortunate episode in our history”.

Vacating his conviction, Mullen said that “violation of the defendant’s procedural due process rights tainted his prosecution”.

Citing testimony by Dr Amanda Salas, Mullen said it was “highly likely that the defendant was coerced into confessing to the crimes due to the power differential between his position as a 14-year-old black male apprehended by white, uniformed law enforcement in a small segregated mill town in South Carolina”.



“The confession simply cannot be said to be known and voluntary, given the facts and circumstances of this case highlighting the defendant’s age and suggestibility,” she said.



Stinney was the youngest person ever to be executed in the US in the 20th century. Mullen said it was improbable that Stinney’s confession, delivered without a lawyer or his parents present, would stand up under the fifth or 14th amendments.

“Based on the facts presented to this court, methods employed by law enforcement in their questioning of the defendant may have been unduly suggestive, unrestrained and noncompliant with the standards of criminal procedure as required by the first and fourteenth amendments,” she said.



The judge also chided Stinney’s appointed attorney, Charles Plowde, who she said “did little to nothing in defending Stinney”.



George’s sister, Aime Ruffner, told the hearing in January she was with him when the murders occurred, an alibi that was never presented at his trial.

Mullen said Plowde made no independent investigation, did not request a change of venue or additional time to prepare the case, asked “little or no questions” on cross-examination of state witnesses and presented “few or no witnesses” on behalf of his client.

In addition, he “failed to file an appeal or stay of execution. That is the essence of being effective and for these reasons the conviction cannot stand.”