A Boy’s Execution, 70 Years Later

George Stinney Jr.

On the first page of the official sentencing report for George Stinney Jr., the outline of a boy is visible in a short string of numbers. Age: 14. Height: 5-1. Weight: 95. His complexion is listed as Black, his religion as Baptist, his occupation as None. Next to Build one word is typed: Small.

On March 24, 1944, George was arrested and charged with the murder of two young white girls, Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames, who were found beaten to death in a ditch in rural Clarendon County, S.C.

One month later he was tried and found guilty. He was executed on June 16, 1944 — the youngest person to be put to death in the 20th century. He was so small that the guards struggled to strap him to the electric chair, and the jolt of electricity knocked the mask from his face.

The sentencing report states that George Stinney was “legally electrocuted.” But to call what happened legal is to say only that this boy’s fate was decided in a courtroom, by a judge and jury, rather than by a throng of angry men with a rope.

In truth, George Stinney was lynched in slow motion.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The New York Times, Editorail pages, Jesse Wegman, June 15, 2014

Related article:

- He was 14 years, 6 months and 5 days old -- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century, The Raw Story, October 3, 2011; The Grio, NewsOne, October 5, 2011; Bluffton Today.
In a South Carolina prison sixty-six years ago, guards walked a 14-year-old boy, bible tucked under his arm, to the electric chair. At 5' 1" and 95 pounds, the straps didn’t fit, and an electrode was too big for his leg. The switch was pulled and the adult sized death mask fell from George Stinney’s face. Tears streamed from his eyes. Witnesses recoiled in horror as they watched the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century die...

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