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http://news.yahoo.com/trial-sought-sc-boy-... New trial sought for SC boy, 14, executed in 1944
Associated Press
By JEFFREY COLLINS
3 hours ago
FILE - This undated file photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History shows George Stinney Jr., the youngest person ever executed in South Carolina, in 1944. Supporters of Stinney plan to argue Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, that there wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty in 1944 of killing a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. The black teen was found guilty of killing the white girls in a trial that lasted less than a day in the tiny Southern mill town of Alcolu, separated, as most were in those days, by race.
(AP Photo/South Carolina Department of Archives and History)
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FILE - This undated file photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History shows George Stinney Jr., the youngest person ever executed in South Carolina, in 1944. Supporters of Stinney plan to argue Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, that there wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty in 1944 of killing a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. The black teen was found guilty of killing the white girls in a trial that lasted less than a day in the tiny Southern mill town of Alcolu, separated, as most were in those days, by race.
(AP Photo/South Carolina Department of Archives and History, File)
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A 14-year-old boy executed by South Carolina nearly 70 years ago is finally getting another day in court.
Supporters of George Stinney plan to argue Tuesday that there wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty in 1944 of killing a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. The black teen was found guilty of killing the white girls in a trial that lasted less than a day in the tiny Southern mill town of Alcolu, separated, as most were in those days, by race.
Nearly all the evidence, including a confession that was central to the case against Stinney, has disappeared, along with the transcript of the trial. Lawyers working on behalf of Stinney's family have sworn statements from his relatives accounting for his time the day the girls were killed, from a cellmate saying he never confessed to the crime and from a pathologist disputing the findings of the autopsy done on the victims.
The novel decision whether to give an executed man a new trial will be in the hands of Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen. Experts say it is a longshot. South Carolina law has a high bar for new trials based on evidence that could have been discovered at the time of the trial. Also, the legal system in the state before segregation often found defendants guilty with evidence that would be considered scant today. If Mullen finds in favor of Stinney, it could open the door for hundreds of other appeals.
But the Stinney case is unique in one way. At 14, he's the youngest person executed in the United States in the past 100 years. Even in 1944, there was an outcry over putting someone so young in the electric chair. Newspaper accounts said the straps in the chair didn't fit around his 95-pound body and an electrode was too big for his leg.
Stinney's supporters said racism, common in the Jim Crow era South, meant deputies in Clarendon County did little investigation after they decided Stinney was the prime suspect. They said he was pulled from his parents and interrogated without a lawyer.
Back in 1944, Stinney was likely the only black person in the courtroom during his one-day trial. On Tuesday, the prosecutor arguing against him will be Ernest "Chip" Finney III, the son of South Carolina's first black Chief Justice. Finney said last month he won't present any evidence against Stinney at the hearing, but if a new trial is granted, he will ask for time to conduct a new investigation.
What that investigation might find is not known. South Carolina did not have a statewide law enforcement unit to help smaller jurisdictions until 1947.
Newspaper stories about Stinney's trial offer little clue whether any evidence was introduced beyond the teen's confession and an autopsy report. Some people around Alcolu said bloody clothes were taken from Stinney's home, but never introduced at trial because of his confession. No record of those clothes exists.
Relatives of one of the girls killed, 11-year-old Betty Binnicker, have recently spoke out as well, saying Stinney was known around town as a bully who threatened to fight or kill people who came too close to the grass where he grazed the family cow.
It isn't known if the judge will rule Tuesday, or take time to come to her decision. Stinney's supporters said if the motion for a new trial fails, they will ask the state to pardon him.
FILE - This undated file photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History shows George Stinney Jr., the youngest person ever executed in South Carolina, in 1944. Supporters of Stinney plan to argue Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, that there wasn't enough evidence to find him guilty in 1944 of killing a 7-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. The black teen was found guilty of killing the white girls in a trial that lasted less than a day in the tiny Southern mill town of Alcolu, separated, as most were in those days, by race.
(AP Photo/South Carolina Department of Archives and History, File)
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mello 2 minutes ago
Back in the day, when prejudice was a way of life for ALL people, would have been a terrible time to live. My mother tells me of living in East Texas when blacks would step off the side walk and on to the street if a white person walked past them. Terrible, horrible way to live and be treated. The blacks of today have NO idea how ruthless and degraded their race was treated. They can should racism and prejudice all they want to, and I'm not saying it still doesn't go on today, but they have it SO much better than they realize. In many cases, it's their actions that segregate them. Back then? It literally was just the color of their skin....
wcwm 2 minutes ago
A waste of time, resources, and money. You cant right every wrong from the past, and thats if it in fact was a wrong. A new trial is moot. Someone said if your under the age of 25 the death penalty should not apply! Are you kidding me, I knew right from wrong when I was a child, if you think innocent murder is ok then you probably should be put down or locked away for life because your obviously mentally disturbed and will end up hurting or killing someone and dont have any value for society. All you do gooders crying foul and wanting to waste time processing wrongs from yesteryear should be worrying about the future and all the mental deficients out there today because odds are going up everyday that you or someone you know and love are going to run into one.
Paula 34 seconds ago
OK, if a new trial is granted the prosecutor said he would ask for time to conduct a new investigation. First of all, the article said nearly all the evidence against the boy, including his confession has disappeared. The only witnesses are probably his family members who if older than the boy are most likely dead since he would have been 84 himself. And any family members that are still living have to go back into their memories of 70 years ago. And I believe they will, of course, say the kid was with them at the time of the killings which is all hearsay. Now where is this investigation going to lead, a lot of wasted manpower and money that could be spent helping some other wrongly accused person or victims of a heinous crime. I just don't see any logic or sense in this. And it will also set a precedence for others who think their relative was wrongly jailed or put to death. How many years or centuries do we want to go back? Do we start again with slavery and all the injustices that were done to some of them? Where would it end in a legal system that is already jam packed with cases and a sparse personnel to handle them?
Benita 1 minute ago
It is sad that we have a society that feeds and breeds racism. It might be a waste of money, as some of you consider, but it will give the descendents of this family some peace. Hell, we have wasted more money on nonsense, such as the income we pay our Congress. It bothers people because the rest of the World, will see the injustice in the United States that we try so hard to hide. I say, let it be seen and known.
Cloud Nine 2 minutes ago
An honorable way to make the family feel better I am sure however it seems rather costly in many ways. More than likely the boy is innocent and its a horrible stain on that era of time and the principals involved.
Now in our time we want to spend seventy thousand dollars minimally to put on a new trial? If a new trial is really needed then why not have the families of the principals involved pay for it. Sorry but my god, people are in our prisons today that are innocent yet less than something like 2% if that are ever given a new trial even when the courts know they should have one. And on a personal basis this is dredging up old dogs that should be left asleep. I don't agree with what happened at all but in these days its the whites that are the minorities so really it all should be leveling out without more expense to the taxpayer!
Anne M 1 minute ago
It surprises me how for some many commenters everything comes down to money and the taxpayer dollars that supposedly come directly out of their pockets for each issue, as if they truly knew exactly where every cent of the money went. It surprises me how little understanding of the importance of real social justice and the need to sometimes go back and rectify past wrongs to hopefully not continue to repeat those injustices. We well never be perfect, but it is a valid human endeavor to understand how history repeats itself. I want my tax dollars to go there. Not all value is material.
Garfield 1 minute ago
White people will never atone for the damage that slavery has done to Blacks, and not just slavery but Jim crow ism that followed whites were very barbaric in their treatment of Blacks. Whites have profited from slavery and it's injustices. There's no let's move on this is a better day or time or I did not have anything to do with it that's bull it happened and there was no reason for Blacks or any race of people to be subjected to such cruelty.
Kevin 2 minutes ago
So what is the point. He is dead 70 years now. Doesn't South Carolina have more important things to do? If he was wrongly executed there is nothing to be done for it now. leave it alone. The article says all the evidence is long gone now. Any witnesses or relatives living then are mostly gone now too. This makes no sense. It seems obvious it is only an attempt for his relatives today, who never knew him, to cash in on his misfortune...
The longest display name that is humanly possible! 1 minute ago
I am going to protest the reversal of the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix race where James Hunt was found to have used an illegal car, then disqualified. When this decision was reversed it put him back in the running for the championship which he eventually won by one point over Niki Lauda. I am so #$%$ about this I can't sleep at nights. I don't really even like motor racing, or sports in general, it's just that I have nothing else constructive to do with my life so I must take up causes that don't make any difference...much like the Supporters of George Stinney.
Not a party boy 4 minutes ago
It was seventy years ago and the evidence is gone. No justice can be served, no one can be brought to justice for the crime and if he was innocent he has been dead so long and nothing will bring him back or clear his name to any that knew him. Instead of wasting money and court time on this dead case help the living I'm sure there is an innocent man in jail, heck just ask they are all innocent.
**************
It will never cease to amaze me as to what comes out of the mouths of people... The raw hatred of individuals who see you as less valuable than they, a lesser 'Human Being!'
1944? How much has changed? It's 2014...how much has changed?
Many white folks continue to have a health hatred of Black folks in general. One commenter stated the stories of old are suppressed simply because they (the government and supremacists) do not want the world to know that classism and racism is the general mood within the jurisdiction of these United States as it is (some say not as bad) in the so-called 3rd world countries and European nations.
WHAT HYPOCRACY...? Justice is where? How many, I wonder, think 'Emit Til' or the young man in Philly who's testicles were lacerated by a city cop, or the many young Black teens who have suffered at the hands of racist villains received JUSTICE?
...I wonder!
SANKOFA!
Peace and Love,
Greg.
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Posted By: Gregory V. Boulware, Esq.
Tuesday, January 21st 2014 at 12:51PM
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