“Calling it a “great and fundamental injustice,” a South Carolina judge on Wednesday vacated the 1944 murder conviction of 14-year-old George J. Stinney Jr., the youngest person executed in the United States in the last century. Judge Carmen T. Mullen of Circuit Court did not rule that the conviction of Mr. Stinney for the murder of two white girls in the town of Alcolu was wrong on the merits. She did find, however, that the prosecution had failed in numerous ways to safeguard the constitutional rights of Mr. Stinney, who was black, from the time he was taken into custody until his death by electrocution. The all-white jury could not be considered a jury of the teenager’s peers, Judge Mullen ruled, and his court-appointed attorney did “little to nothing” to defend him. His confession was most likely coerced and unreliable, she added, “due to the power differential between his position as a 14-year-old black male apprehended and questioned by white, uniformed law enforcement in a small, segregated mill town in South Carolina.””* The Young Turks hosts Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
1 Family seeks justice 70 years after execution
The family of 14-year-old George Stinney, executed for murder in 1944, says he’s innocent. CNN’s David Mattingly reports.
IMPORTANT CONTENT
2 George Stinney, 14, Executed In Vile Act Of Injustice, Exonerated 70s Years Late
Gepubliceerd op 18 dec. 2014
4 – June 16, 1944 – George Stinney, Age 14, Executed
Gepubliceerd op 16 jun. 2017
5 THE CURRENT | The Story of George Stinney Jr
Gepubliceerd op 31 dec. 2017
This film is based in part on the true history of George Stinney Jr and on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Beirce.
7 The Youngest American Ever Executed – October 1, 2011
Gepubliceerd op 2 okt. 2011
8 My Name Is George Junius Stinney Jr.
Gepubliceerd op 11 jan. 2015
10 Judge decides fate of 1944 trial
Gepubliceerd op 26 jan. 2014
11 Robert Ridgeway: “George Stinney led searchers to the bodies.”
Gepubliceerd op 1 mrt. 2014
16 Judge overturns conviction of 14-yo executed in 1944 Finally! – George Stinney Exonerated
I’ve been following this story a long time.
This update is bittersweet. (thanks to Kyle Kulinski from Secular Talk for the update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zdaN… )
A South Carolina judge on Wednesday took the unusual step of vacating the 1944 conviction of a black 14-year-old boy, the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century, saying he did not receive a fair trial in the murders of two white girls.
George Stinney Jr. was convicted by an all-white jury after a one-day trial and a 10-minute jury deliberation during a time when racial segregation prevailed in much of the United States.
Stinney died in the electric chair less than three months after the killings of Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 7
In her ruling, Judge Carmen Tevis Mullen said she was not overturning the case on its merits, which scant records made nearly impossible to relitigate, but on the failure of the court to grant Stinney a fair trial.
She said few or no defense witnesses testified and that it was “highly likely” that Stinney’s confession to white police officers was coerced.
“From time to time we are called to look back to examine our still-recent history and correct injustice where possible,” she wrote. “I can think of no greater injustice than a violation of one’s constitutional rights, which has been proven to me in this case by a preponderance of the evidence standard.”
The girls disappeared on March 23, 1944, after leaving home in the small mill town of Alcolu on their bicycles to look for wildflowers. They were found the next morning in a ditch, their skulls crushed.
Stinney was taken into custody that day and confessed within hours, according to Mullen’s ruling.
Last year, members of Stinney’s family petitioned for a new trial. His sister, Amie Ruffner, 77, testified in a January hearing that he could not have killed the girls because he had been with her on that day.
Citing the lack of a transcript from the original trial, no surviving physical evidence and only a handful of official documents, Mullen ruled instead to overturn the conviction outright.
Ruffner and two other surviving siblings of Stinney, who were run out of town shortly after his arrest, were pleased with the outcome, said Stinney family attorney Matthew Burgess.
“This is something that’s been weighing on them for seven decades now,” he said. “They are happy to hear that their brother has been exonerated.”
Prosecutors, who had opposed a new trial, were not immediately available for comment.
IMPORTANT CONTEXT
18 The Execution of George Stinney
20 The Youngest American Ever Executed – October 1, 2011
9 Judge vacates murder conviction on Pennsylvania teen executed in 1931
14 jun. 2022
NEWS
Pennsylvania Teen Exonerated 91 Years After Sham Trial and Execution on Racially Motivated Charges that He Had Murdered a White Woman
INNOCENCE RACE HISTORY OF THE DEATH PENALTY PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania Teen Exonerated 91 Years After Sham Trial and Execution on Racially Motivated Charges that He Had Murdered a White Woman
An African-American teenager who was convicted and sentenced to death in Pennsylvania on false charges that he had murdered a white woman has been exonerated, 91 years after he was executed.
On June 13, 2022, Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kevin Kelly granted a motion filed jointly by lawyers for Alexander McClay Williams and the Delaware County District Attorney’s office to posthumously overturn Williams’ conviction and death sentence. (Williams is pictured with then-District Attorney William J. McCarter displaying the murder weapon.) District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer then filed a motion to “nol pros” the case, dismissing the charges against Williams and formally exonerating him. Williams, who was sixteen years old when he was put to death in the electric chair, was the youngest person ever executed in Pennsylvania.
The court action was the culmination of years of effort by Williams’ family and Sam Lemon, the great-grandson of his trial lawyer, to clear the teen of the murder of his school matron, Vida Robare. Robare had actually been murdered by her abusive ex-husband, shortly after she had obtained a divorce from him on grounds of “extreme cruelty.” Williams was represented at trial by William Ridley, the first African American admitted to the Bar of Delaware County. Ridley was provided just $10 to investigate and defend the case. An all-white jury convicted and condemned Williams based upon a confession coerced by police, after prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence. The entire trial took less than a day. He was executed without an appeal.
Judge Kelly granted Williams a new trial, finding that the conviction was obtained as a result of “numerous fundamental due process violations.” A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office said the decision to nol pros the case was “an acknowledgement that the charges against [Williams] should never have been brought.”
“Sadly, we cannot undo the past,” Stollsteimer said. “We cannot rewrite history to erase the egregious wrongs of our forebearers. However, when, as here, justice can be served by publicly acknowledging such a wrong, we must seize that opportunity.” Susie Carter, Williams’ only living sibling, responded joyously. “I am happy. I am happy,” she said. “There’s no way they can bring him back, but let his name be cleared of all that. He did not do it.”
Robare had been stabbed 47 times with an ice pick during the murder and suffered two broken ribs and a skull fracture. Williams, however, had no blood on him that day. A bloody handprint was discovered at the crime scene. Although law enforcement had the prints examined by experts, the results were not presented at trial and were withheld from the defense. Police never investigated Robare’s ex-husband as a possible suspect.
Williams’ confession, which did not match the circumstances of the crime, was given after hours of police interrogation under undocumented circumstances. A 1931 photograph shows Williams with what appears to have a black eye sustained during police interrogation. When Williams was sentenced to death, he shouted that he had been promised he wouldn’t be executed if he confessed.
During his investigation, Lemon uncovered Robare’s death certificate, which named Williams as her murderer before he even had been charged with the crime. “The guilty verdict was decided before the case even began,” Lemon said. Robert Keller, who posthumously represented Williams in the court proceedings, called the case “racial profiling at its worst.”
This effort was unsuccessful because Pennsylvania does not have a mechanism to grant a posthumous pardon. However, in 2017, because of Lemon’s continued advocacy, Williams’ record was expunged.
In 2015, Lemon unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a pardon for Williams, but the efforts failed because Pennsylvania has no mechanism to consider a posthumous pardon. Two years later, he succeeded in having Williams’ record expunged. The effort to exonerate Williams received a boost in November 2019 when Delaware County elected reform candidate Stollsteimer as district attorney. One of the issues in that campaign was the incumbent district attorney’s refusal to reopen a nearly 40-year-old murder case in which a defendant who consistently proclaimed his innocence had been implicated by a teen offender who had been threatened with the death penalty.
Williams’ case bears a striking resemblance to the case of George Stinney, a 14-year-old Black boy who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in South Carolina in 1944 for the murder of two young white girls. Stinney was the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century. His entire trial and sentencing lasted just three hours and the jury deliberated for only 10 minutes. As with Williams, Stinney did not file any appeals and was executed only months after his conviction. A South Carolina trial court vacated Stinney’s conviction in 2014, posthumously exonerating him.
21 Dad Accidentally Throws Kid Over Car Prank!
27 jun. 2016
Welcome to the world-famous Just for Laughs Gags channel, where we pull public pranks on unsuspecting Montreal residents and tourists.