On this day, a fourteen-year-old African American boy, George Stinney, was wrongfully executed on the electric chair after being convicted for the murder of two white girls – Betty Binnicker, aged 11, and Mary Thames, age 8 – in his hometown of Alcolu in South Carolina. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death on a single day. Stinney’s parents were not allowed to see him before the trial and he was given no support during his 81-day confinement. There is also no written record of Stinney’s alleged confession. In 2004 his case was re-examined and judge Carmen Mullen declared Stinney’s conviction legally void on the basis that he had not received a fair trial and was therefore wrongfully executed. Stinney is the youngest American with an exact and confirmed birth date to be both sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century.
Teenager George Stinney Executed
16th June 1944