George Stinney

George Junius Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944) was an African American boy who was wrongfully executed at the age of 14 after being convicted, during an unfair trial, for the murders of two white girls – 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker (December 9, 1932 – March 22, 1944) and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames (March 14, 1936 – March 22, 1944) – in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death on a single day in April 1944 and then executed by electric chair on June 16, 1944, after Governor Olin D. Johnston refused to grant him clemency.

A re-examination of Stinney's case began in 2004, and several individuals and the Northeastern University School of Law sought a judicial review. Stinney's murder conviction was vacated in 2014, with a South Carolina court ruling that he had not received a fair trial, and was thus wrongfully executed. Stinney is the youngest American with an exact birth date confirmed to be both sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century.

Background In 1944, George Stinney stood 5 feet 1 inch (154 cm), and weighed 90–95 pounds (40–43 kg). He lived in a small home with a chicken coop in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina, with his father, George Junius Stinney, mother Aimé Brown Stinney, brother Charles Stinney, 12, and sisters Katherine Stinney, 10, and Aimé Stinney Ruffner, 7. He also had two older brothers, LeRoy Stinney, 21, and Johnny Stinney, 17 as well as an older sister, Carolina Stinney, 20.

Stinney's father worked at the town's sawmill, and the family resided in company housing. Alcolu was a small, working-class mill town. White and black neighborhoods were separated by railroad tracks, which was common for small Southern towns of the time. Given segregated schools and churches for white and black residents, there was limited interaction between them.

On March 23, 1944, the bodies of Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames were found in a ditch on the African-American side of Alcolu after the girls failed to return home the night before. Stinney's father assisted in the search. The girls had been beaten with a weapon, variously reported as a piece of blunt metal or a railroad spike. Binnicker and Thames both suffered severe blunt force trauma, resulting in penetration of both girls' skulls. According to a report by the medical examiner, these wounds had been "inflicted by a blunt instrument with a round head, about the size of a hammer." The medical examiner reported no evidence of sexual assault to the younger girl, though the genitalia of the older girl were slightly bruised.

The girls were last seen riding their bicycles looking for flowers. As they passed the Stinneys' property, they stopped to ask Stinney and his sister, Aimé, According to Aimé, she was with Stinney at the time the police later established the murders occurred.

Following Stinney'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. He had no support during his 81-day confinement and trial; he was detained at a jail in Columbia, from Alcolu, due to the risk of lynching. Others urged the governor to let the execution proceed, which he did. He visited George Stinney in the Death House two days before his execution, on June 14. Johnston wrote a response to one appeal for clemency, stating, "I have just talked with the officer who made the arrest in this case. It may be interesting for you to know that Stinney killed the smaller girl to rape the larger one. Then he killed the larger girl and raped her dead body. Twenty minutes later he returned and attempted to rape her again but her body was too cold. All of this he admitted himself." It was reported that these were merely rumors, and Johnston's claims were not corroborated by the girls' autopsies. In a 2016 book, Next Stop, Eternity, the son of Stinney's chaplain, Reverend Charles M. "Red" Kelly, also wrote that Stinney had confessed to his father and fellow clergymen. Reverend Kelly met with Governor Johnston and urged him to spare Stinney's life on account of his age, but was unsuccessful.

Five days before the execution, Dr. J. Baxter Funderburk, a member of the South Carolina Board of Pardons who would visit all of the state's death row inmates, visited Stinney in prison. He reported that Stinney initially denied committing the murders, but then said he was guilty, albeit he said he did not know why he killed them. Stinney said the girls had asked him where he could find some flowers, after which he told them that they could find honeysuckle in the woods. Shortly after, he followed them and beat them to death, killing the younger girl first. Funderburk reported that Stinney said he used an iron rod about 12 inches long and about "as thick as his thumb."

An execution of a child as young as 14 was rare, but not unheard of in United States history. Many sources say that Stinney was the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century. However, this may be incorrect. There are recorded executions of a 14-year-old boy in North Carolina in 1914 who was erroneously listed as 18, a 14-year-old boy in South Carolina in 1921 who was erroneously listed as 16, and of a 14-year-old boy in Florida in 1910 who was erroneously listed as 15.

Execution

Stinney was executed on Friday, June 16, 1944, at 7:30 a.m. He was prepared for execution by electric chair. Stinney was reported to have made his last confession less than 30 minutes before his execution. The Sheriff of Clarendon County talked to Stinney, who said Stinney told him that he was guilty and had acted alone. The perception that Stinney was sobbing at his execution or that a stack of books was needed to place him in the chair was later contested by Terri Evans, the niece of Mary Emma Thames' mother, Lula Mae. Terri's uncle, Clyde Barnes, witnessed the execution. Barnes told Evans' father what he saw during the execution, which was then relayed to her years later. Her father stated that Barnes "said it was just a rumor that the hood had slipped and they did not put a stack of books under him." Stinney was buried in an unmarked grave at the Calvary Baptist Church Cemetery in Lee County, South Carolina.

Reopening of case and vacatur of conviction 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. 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.

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.

Rather than approving a new trial, on December 16, 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 rights 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 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." These family members contend that the claims of a deathbed confession from an individual confessing to the girls' murders have never been substantiated. At the same time, another niece of Binnicker, while remaining convinced of Stinney's guilt, agreed that Stinney did not receive a fair trial and that he should not have received the death penalty, adding that she felt bad for Stinney and his family and that she hoped they eventually would find peace. A childhood acquaintance of Binnicker also stated, "I'm sorry that they electrocuted him. I wish they had just sent him to prison."

Alternate suspect Since Stinney's exoneration, George Washington Burke Jr. (1917–1947) the son of a wealthy white businessman, George Burke Sr., has been the subject of speculation as a possible suspect for the murders. George Burke Jr. died two to three years after the murders of the two girls, in 1947, at age 29. Stinney's mother had worked for the Burke family for a brief period. Stinney's sister recalled that her mother had once come home saying that Burke Sr. had made advances to her, and their father had warned their mother to no longer go back. Stinney's sister claimed to have heard that the Burke boys had framed Stinney because "[their] mother didn't want to give it up." Burke Sr. conducted an initial search for the girls and was the owner of the territory behind Greenhill Baptist Church where the girls' bodies were found. He was also the foreman of the grand jury that indicted Stinney, and has been accused of helping steer the blame off of his son and onto Stinney.

Sonya Eaddy-Williamson, a white Alcolu resident who grew close to Stinney's sisters, investigated the case. According to her, George Burke Jr.'s son, Wayne Burke, told her that his grandmother had told him that his father had picked the girls up in his lumber truck by his grandmother's house on the day of the girls' murders. In 2017, Wayne Burke denied saying this and said he remained convinced of Stinney's guilt. Stinney's sister had previously recalled that after the two girls had asked about maypop flowers, a lumber truck drove down the road.

In January 2022, South Carolina state representative Cezar McKnight introduced a bill named after Stinney, the George Stinney Fund, which would make the state of South Carolina pay $10 million to the families of the wrongfully executed if their conviction is posthumously overturned.

Books and films about Stinney's case

David Stout based his first novel, Carolina Skeletons (1988), on the Stinney case. He was awarded the 1989 Edgar Award for Best First Novel (Edgar Allan Poe Award). Stout suggests in the novel that Stinney, whom he renames Linus Bragg, was innocent. The plot revolves around a fictitious brother of Stinney/Bragg, who unravels the truth about the case decades later. The novel was adapted as a 1991 television movie of the same name directed by John Erman, featuring Kenny Blank as Stinney/Bragg. Lou Gossett Jr. played Stinney's/Bragg's younger brother James. The 1993 novel Billy by Albert French was inspired by these events. The 1996 Stephen King novel The Green Mile was loosely based on Stinney's story. Like Stinney, the character John Coffey is an African American who is wrongfully executed for the rape and murder of two white twin girls. It is eventually revealed that another character is the actual killer. In February 2014, another movie about the Stinney case, 83 Days, was announced by Pleroma Studios, written and produced by Ray Brown with Charles Burnett slated to direct. Ultimately directed by Andrew Paul Howell, the film was released in 2018. An opera, Stinney: An American Execution, was written in 2015 by Frances Pollock, who had just earned her master's degree at the Peabody Institute. It was performed to a full house at 2640 Space in Baltimore, Maryland the same year. Several cousins of George Stinney from Baltimore and other parts of Maryland attended the opening night. In 2022, Opera Grand Rapids in Grand Rapids Michigan produced the world premiere of Stinney: An American Execution at The Wege Theater. Karyn Parsons' How High the Moon has a subplot where a friend of the main character is framed for murdering two white girls, similarly to the George Stinney case. Jericho Brown's 2021 poem "Inaugural" makes reference to Stinney's execution. Nia DaCosta's 2021 film Candyman features Stinney in a cameo as one of the souls trapped in the Candyman "hive": in his Candyman form, Stinney rides a bicycle with his hand in a hook. Stinney was previously featured in DaCosta's 2020 promotional short film of the same name, his death and resurrection depicted in the form of shadow puppetry. Filmmaker Jamison Stalsworth's short film The Current: The Story of George Stinney was released in 2017. George Stinney is cited in Chain-Gang All Stars, a novel by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, as the youngest person ever executed by the United States. The novel incorrectly states that George Stinney was exonerated seventy years after his execution, instead of correctly stating that his conviction was vacated.