June 16, 1944: George Junius Stinney Jr. is executed for murder, in the electric chair, at the South Carolina Penitentiary, in the State capital of Columbia.
Who was the murder victim? He was. Because he was innocent.
And he was 14 years old.
He was born on October 21, 1929 in Pinewood, South Carolina. On March 23, 1944, he was 5-foot-1 and 95 pounds. On that day, the bodies of Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 7, were found in a ditch on the African-American side of Alcolu, South Carolina, after the girls failed to return home the night before.
Unusually, a combined unit of white and black men, including George Stinney Sr., searched for the girls. They had been found beaten with a weapon, variously reported as a piece of blunt metal or a railroad spike. 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."
George Jr. and his older brother John were arrested on suspicion of murdering the girls. John was released by police, but George was held in custody. He was not allowed to see his parents, George Sr. and Aimé, until after his trial and conviction.
According to a handwritten statement, his arresting officer was H.S. Newman, a Clarendon County deputy, who stated, "I arrested a boy by the name of George Stinney. He then made a confession and told me where to find a piece of iron, about 15 inches where he said he put it in a ditch about six feet from the bicycle." Aside from this statement, there is no evidence of the confession: If it was written down, it disappeared.
Following George Jr.'s arrest, George Sr. was fired from his job at the local sawmill, and the Stinney family had to immediately vacate their company housing. George Jr. had no support during his 81-day confinement and trial. He was detained at a jail in Columbia, 50 miles from Alcolu, due to the risk of lynching. He was questioned alone, without the presence of his parents or an attorney. Although the 6th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees legal counsel, this was not routinely observed until the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright that explicitly required representation through the course of criminal proceedings.
The entire trial, from jury selection to sentencing, occurred on April 24, 1944. The boy's court-appointed counsel was Charles Plowden, a tax commissioner who was running for office, and didn't want to risk being seen as a supporter of civil rights. He challenged none of the prosecution's evidence, and called no witnesses. The trial portion took only 2 1/2 hours. The jury was all white, since jurors were chosen from voter rolls. Their deliberation lasted 10 minutes, and they found the boy guilty. Judge Philip H. Stoll sentenced him to death. Plowden made no appeal.
Appeals for clemency were made to Governor Olin Johnston. They came from the NAACP, and they came from churches, white and black alike. Some appeals came from people who admitted that they were white supremacists, but didn't think someone so young should be executed. His parents were allowed to see him once after the trial, when he was held in the Columbia penitentiary. Under the threat of lynching, they were not allowed to see him any other time.
He was put into the electric chair. He was too short to fit into the apparatus, so a Bible was used as a booster. The mask was too big for him, and it slipped off as the chair was activated. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
In 2014, following a review of the evidence, a circuit court judge vacated George's conviction. Suspicion has fallen on George Washington Burke Jr., a white man, known during his lifetime as a womanizer and a thief, who had made advances on George's mother Aimé, and she had refused him.
George Washington Burke Sr. was a wealthy local businessman. He was the owner of the sawmill where George Stinney Sr. worked. And he was the foreman of the grand jury that indicted George Stinney Jr. It appears that he engineered the boy's indictment in order to cover up for his son's crime.
George Burke Jr. died in 1947 -- I can't find a cause -- and thus was conveniently unavailable for later investigation. George Burke Sr. died in 1982, and never confessed to engineering the cover-up. The story that George Burke Jr. made a deathbed confession in 1947 remains as unproven as George Stinney Jr.'s confession.
*
June 16, 1944 was a Friday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-1 at Yankee Stadium. Hank Borowy outpitched Bobo Newsom, and helped his own cause with a 2-RBI triple.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.
* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Milo Candini pitched a 5-hit shutout.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
* The St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 14-1 at Briggs Stadium (later renamed Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 10-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The New York Giants and the Boston Braves were rained out at Braves Field in Boston. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Braves won the opener, 4-1. The Giants won the nightcap, 6-5. Mel Ott, by this point also the Giants' manager, went 2-for-6 with 3 walks and a home run over the 2 games.
* And the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were rained out at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on the following Sunday. The Cards won the 1st game, 12-2. The Bucs won the 2nd game, 3-1. Stan Musial went 3-for-4 with a walk and 4 RBIs in the 1st game, then sat out the 2nd game.
