George Stinney

George Junius Stinney Jr. was born on October 21, 1929, in Alcolu, South Carolina. He was a young African American boy whose life was tragically cut short at the tender age of fourteen. Stinney became a symbol of injustice when he was wrongfully convicted of the murders of two white girls, eleven-year-old Betty June Binnicker and eight-year-old Mary Emma Thames, both of whom were killed in March 1944.

In April 1944, Stinney was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death all in a single day, a process that was marred by significant unfairness. His trial lacked the fundamental elements of justice, and despite his young age, he was executed by electric chair on June 16, 1944. This execution occurred after Governor Olin D. Johnston denied him clemency, sealing his fate in a deeply flawed legal system.

Years later, in 2004, a re-examination of Stinney's case began, driven by advocates and the Northeastern University School of Law. Their efforts culminated in 2014 when a South Carolina court vacated Stinney's murder conviction, acknowledging that he had not received a fair trial. This ruling highlighted the grave miscarriage of justice that had occurred, marking Stinney as the youngest American confirmed to have been sentenced to death and executed in the twentieth century.