On Wednesday, 70 years after the youngest person on record to be executed in the U.S. during the 20th century was given the electric chair, George Stinney Jr. was cleared of murder charges.
In the spring of 1944 in Alcolu, South Carolina, the bodies of two young white girls were found in a ditch. Fourteen-year-old Stinney was arrested and accused of bludgeoning two white girls to death. Stinney’s family, who insisted that he was with them on the day of the murders, were run out of town, NBC News reported.
Officers claimed Stinney, who was just 95 pounds when arrested, had confessed to the murders. A confession from the small teen was never documented.
Stinney’s trial lasted three hours. A jury consisting of 12 white men deliberated for 10 minutes before finding Stinney guilty.
Though seven decades after the death of the wrongfully accused, a judge has finally vacated the murder judgement brought against Stinney.
“This Court finds fundamental, Constitutional violations of due process exist in the 1944 prosecution of George Stinney, Jr. and hereby vacates the judgment,” said Judge Carmen T. Mullen.
The judge wrote that Stinney’s rights were violated, tarnishing the validity of the verdict, according to WBTV.
“Given the particularized circumstances of Stinney’s case, I find by a preponderance of the evidence standard, that a violation of the Defendant’s procedural due process rights tainted his prosecution,” read the judge’s statement.
Defense Attorney Steven McKenzie agreed that Stinney was never given a fair chance to defend himself.
“By not putting the state’s case to the test at all, by not cross examining witnesses, not putting up a defense at all, not giving a closing argument, George was never afforded effective council, and as a result, his Sixth Amendment rights were violated,” McKenzie said.
Ray Brown, who is creating a movie called 83 Days based on Stinney’s case, spoke highly of South Carolina on finally getting the ruling right.
“It’s never too late for justice,” Brown told The Grio. “There’s no statute of limitations on justice. One of the things I can say about South Carolina and I can give them credit for is that they got it right this time. During a period of time in our nation where we seem to have such a great racial divide, you have a southern state that has decided to admit they made a mistake and correct it.”
83 Days is scheduled to begin shooting in Atlanta in March and is set to star Danny Glover.
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