Young American to be sentenced for Capital Punishment

NAME: George Junius Stinney Jr.

BORN: 21st October 1929

MOTHER- Aime Stinney

FATHER- George Stinny Sr.

SIBLING- Katherine Stinney

City: Pinewood, South Carolina

COUNTRY:- TheUnited States Of America

DEATH: June 16, 1944 (Age 14)

CAUSE OF DEATH: Execution by Electric chair

REASON FOR EXECUTION: 1st Degree Murder (Later Overturned)

DATE APPREHENDED- March 1944

BURIED- Calvary Baptist Church Cemetery, Canada

George Stinney Jr. was a young American boy who was convicted of murdering two white girls aged 7 and 11 in the hometown of Alcolu, South carolina. He was executed by the electric chair in June 1944.

It was in 2004, a re- examination on his case proved that his conviction was flawed and it was overturned in 2004. 70 years after he was executed, individuals of Northeastern University School of Law sought out his case as a judicial review. They confirmed that Stinney didn’t receive a fair trial.

Incident:

11 year old Betty June Binnicker and 7 year old Mary Emma Thames were found dead. They were both found dead in the Lumber Plant in the mill town of Alcolu, South Carolina, March 1944. They were reported missing at first when the girls didn’t turn up home the night before.

Arrest and Prosecution:

The 14 year old George Stinne Jr. was arrested as a suspect by the Police. They said that the suspect has confessed to the crime while being under custody. The notes that were provided in the court by an investigating officer were taken as the written confession of George Stinney Jr.

There was a brief trial of which the transcript was not even recorded. Stinney was convicted with murder of 1st degree murder fo two white girls in less than 10 minutes in a two hour trial. His appeal wasn’t heard plus he was given the execution order by the electric chair.

Since the decades of the conviction and execution his word for guilt and validation of the confession and judicial proceedings were criticised extensively. A group of investigators and lawyers investigated the case on behalf of Stinney’s family. In 2013 the family petitioned for a trial from the beginning. December 17, 2014 his conviction was disregarded. It was done so because of the circuit judge who ruled that his case didn’t receive a fair trial. Fundamentally the prosecution and trial was flawed. It was ruled by Judge Mullen that the confession was likely coerced and hence it was inadmissible. She also declared in the court that the execution of a 14 year old boy was an unusual punishment and cruel.

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Case History:

George Junius Stiney Jr. lived in Alcolu, Clarendon County, South Caolina. 14 year old George Stinney Jr. lived with his father George George Stinney Sr., mother Aimé, brothers John, 17, and Charles, 12, and sisters Katherine, 10, and Aimé, 7. George Sr. worked at the town's sawmill, and the family resided in company housing. 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. Given segregated schools and churches for white and black residents, there was limited interaction between them.

The bodies of Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 7, were found in a ditch on March 23, 1944, on the African American side of Alcolu, during a search after they had not returned home the night before. George Stinney Sr. helped in the search. The girls had been beaten with a weapon, variously reported as a piece of blunt metal or a railroad spike. The girls were last seen riding their bicycles looking for flowers.

As they passed the Stinneys' property, they had asked young George Stinney and his sister, Aime. if they knew where to find "maypops", a local name for passion flowers. According to Aimé, she was with George at the time the police later established the murders.

According to an article reported by the wire services on March 24, 1944, and published widely, with the mistake of the boy's name preserved, the sheriff announced the arrest and said that "George Junius" had confessed and led officers to "a hidden piece of iron. Both girls had suffered blunt force trauma to the face and head.

Investigation:

George Stinney and his older brother Johnny were arrested on suspicion of murdering the girls. Johnny was released by police, but George was held. He was not allowed to see his parents until after his trial and conviction. According to a handwritten statement, the arresting officer was H.S. Newman, a Clarendon County deputy, who stated, "I arrested a boy by the name of George Stinney. He then made a confession and told me where to find a piece of iron about 15 inches where, he said he put it in a ditch about six feet from the bicycle." No confession statement signed by Stinney is known to exist. The 14 year old claimed that the arresting officers starved him and then bribed him with food to confess.

George was reported to have gotten into fights at school, including a fight where he scratched a girl with a knife. This assertion by Stinney's seventh-grade teacher, who was African American, was disputed by Aime Stinney Ruffner when it was reported in 1995. A local white woman who remembered Stinney from childhood said in 2014 that Stinney had threatened to kill her and her friend the day before the murder, and that he was known as a bully.

Following George's arrest, his father was fired from his job at the local sawmill, and the Stinney family had to immediately vacate their company housing. The family feared for their safety. His parents did not see George again before the trial. He had no support during his 81-day confinement and trial; he was detained at a jail in Columbia 50 miles from Alcolu, due to the risk of lynching

Trial:

The entire proceeding against Stinney, including jury selection, took one day. Stinney's court-appointed defense counsel was Charles Plowden, a tax commissioner campaigning for election to local office. Plowden did not challenge the three police officers who testified that Stinney confessed to the two murders, despite this being the only evidence against him.

Stinney's trial had an all-white jury, as was typical at the time. As most blacks were still disenfranchised and prohibited from voting, they could not be selected as jurors. More than 1,000 whites crowded the courtroom, but no blacks were allowed.

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Other than the testimony of the three police officers, at trial prosecutors called three witnesses: Reverend Francis Batson, who discovered the bodies of the two girls, and the two doctors who performed the post-mortem examination. Conflicting confessions were reported to have been offered by the prosecution. The court allowed discussion of the "possibility" of rape although the medical examiner's report had no evidence to support this. Stinney's counsel did not call any witnesses, did not cross-examine witnesses, and offered little or no defense. The trial presentation lasted two and a half hours.

Between the time of Stinney's arrest and his execution, Stinney's parents were allowed to see him once, after the trial when he was held in the Columbia penitentiary. Under the threat of lynching, they were not allowed to see him any other time.

Reopening of the case:

In 2004, George Frierson, a local historian who grew up in Alcolu, started researching the case after reading a newspaper article about it. His work gained the attention of South Carolina lawyers Steve McKenzie and Matt Burgess. In addition, Ray Brown, attorney James Moon, and others contributed countless hours of research and review of historical documents, and found witnesses and evidence to assist in exonerating Stinney. Among those who aided the case were the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at Northeastern University School of Law, which filed an amicus brief with the court in 2014. Frierson and the pro bono lawyers first sought relief through the Pardon and Parole Board of South Carolina.

McKenzie and Burgess, along with attorney Ray Chandler representing Stinney's family, filed a motion for a new trial on October 25, 2013. George Frierson stated in interviews, "there has been a person that has been named as being the culprit, who is now deceased. And it was said by the family that there was a deathbed confession." Frierson said that the rumored culprit came from a well-known, prominent white family. A member, or members, of that family had served on the initial coroner's inquest jury, which had recommended that Stinney be prosecuted.

New evidence in the court hearing in January 2014 included testimony by Stinney's siblings that he was with them at the time of the murders. In addition, an affidavit was introduced from the "Reverend Francis Batson, who found the girls and pulled them from the water-filled ditch. In his statement he recalls there was not much blood in or around the ditch, suggesting that they may have been killed elsewhere and moved." Wilford "Johnny" Hunter, who was in prison with Stinney, "testified that the teenager told him he had been made to confess" and always maintained his innocence.

The solicitor for the state of South Carolina, who argued for the state against exoneration, was Ernest A. Finney III. He is the son of Ernest A. Finney Jr., who was appointed as South Carolina's first African American State Supreme Court justice since Reconstruction.

Rather than approving a new trial, on December 17, 2014, circuit court Judge Carmen Mullen vacated Stinney's conviction. She ruled that he had not received a fair trial, as he was not effectively defended and his Sixth Amendment right had been violated. The ruling was a rare use of the legal remedy of coram nobis. Judge Mullen ruled that his confession was likely coerced and thus inadmissible. She also found that the execution of a 14-year-old constituted "cruel and unusual punishment", and that his attorney "failed to call exculpating witnesses or to preserve his right of appeal." Mullen confined her judgment to the process of the prosecution, noting that Stinney "may well have committed this crime." With reference to the legal process, Mullen wrote, "No one can justify a 14-year-old child charged, tried, convicted and executed in some 80 days," concluding that "In essence, not much was done for this child when his life lay in the balance."

Family members of both Betty Binnicker and Mary Thames expressed disappointment at the court's ruling. They said that although they acknowledge Stinney's execution at the age of 14 is controversial, they never doubted his guilt. The niece of Betty Binnicker claimed she and her family have extensively researched the case, and argues that "people who [just] read these articles in the newspaper don't know the truth." Binnicker's niece alleges that, in the early 1990s, a police officer who had arrested Stinney had contacted her and said: "Don't you ever believe that boy didn't kill your aunt."These family members said that the claims of a deathbed confession from an individual confessing to the girls' murders have never been substantiated.