George Stinney was convicted after a one-day trial in 1944
A teenager who was executed by electric
chair in 1944 has been exonerated by a South Carolina judge, who
described the boy's conviction as a great injustice.
George Stinney Jr, 14, was executed after being convicted over the March 1944 killings of two white girls aged seven and 11.He was convicted during a one-day trial and given no right to appeal. He was the youngest person to have been executed in the United States in the 20th Century.
In throwing out Stinney's conviction, Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen wrote in her ruling on the case: "I can think of no greater injustice."
Civil rights activists had long campaigned for Stinney to be exonerated, arguing that his death showed how a black person could be wronged by the justice system.
Stinney family relative Teddy Stinney listens to testimony in January
Investigators quickly arrested Stinney after witnesses said they saw him with the girls as they picked flowers.
Campaigners said there was no physical evidence linking Stinney to the deaths.
In January, Judge Mullen heard testimony during a two-day hearing. Most of the evidence from the original trial was gone and almost all the witnesses were dead.
Judge Mullen said Stinney's conviction was not being overturned on its merits, but because the 1944 court had failed to grant the teenager a fair trial.
She added that few or no witnesses testified in the trial and that Stinney's confession to police officers was "highly likely" to have been coerced.
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