George Stinney

In January 2022, South Carolina state representative Cezar McKnight introduced a bill named after Stinney, titled the George Stinney Fund, which would make the state of South Carolina pay $10 million to the families of the wrongfully executed if their conviction is posthumously overturned.

According to Sonya Eaddy-Williamson, a white Alcolu resident investigating the case who became close to Stinney's sisters, George Burke Jr.'s son, Wayne Burke had told her that his grandmother had told him that his father had picked the girls up in his lumber truck by his grandmother’s house on the day of the girls' murders. In 2017, Wayne Burke denied saying this and said he remained convinced of Stinney’s guilt. Stinney's sister had previously recalled that after the two girls had asked about maypop flowers, a lumber truck drove down the road. Lawyers for the Stinney family have stated that there had been rumors of a deathbed confession to the murders by a member of a prominent white family, however, this has never been proven.

New evidence in the court hearing in January 2014 included testimony by Stinney's siblings that he was with them at the time of the murders. In addition, an affidavit was introduced from the "Reverend Francis Batson, who found the girls and pulled them from the water-filled ditch. In his statement he recalls there was not much blood in or around the ditch, suggesting that they may have been killed elsewhere and moved." Wilford "Johnny" Hunter, who was in prison with Stinney, "testified that the teenager told him he had been made to confess" and always maintained his innocence. The solicitor for the state of South Carolina, who argued for the state against exoneration, was Ernest A. Finney III. He is the son of Ernest A. Finney Jr., who was appointed as South Carolina's first African-American State Supreme Court justice since Reconstruction.

Rather than approving a new trial, on December 16, 2014, circuit court Judge Carmen Mullen vacated Stinney's conviction. She ruled that he had not received a fair trial, as he was not effectively defended and his Sixth Amendment rights had been violated. The ruling was a rare use of the legal remedy of coram nobis. Judge Mullen ruled that his confession was likely coerced and thus inadmissible. She also found that the execution of a 14-year-old constituted "cruel and unusual punishment", and that his attorney "failed to call exculpating witnesses or to preserve his right of appeal." Mullen confined her judgment to the process of the prosecution, noting that Stinney "may well have committed this crime." With reference to the legal process, Mullen wrote, "No one can justify a 14-year-old child charged, tried, convicted and executed in some 80 days," concluding that, "In essence, not much was done for this child when his life lay in the balance."

McKenzie and Burgess, along with attorney Ray Chandler representing Stinney's family, filed a motion for a new trial on October 25, 2013.

A re-examination of Stinney's case began in 2004, and several individuals and the Northeastern University School of Law sought a judicial review. Stinney's murder conviction was vacated in 2014, seventy years after he was executed, with a South Carolina court ruling that he had not received a fair trial, and was thus wrongfully executed. A vacated judgment "place[s] the parties in the position of no trial having taken place at all; thus a vacated judgment is of no further force or effect."

In 2004, George Frierson, a local historian who grew up in Alcolu, started researching the case after reading a newspaper article about it. His work gained the attention of South Carolina lawyers Steve McKenzie and Matt Burgess. In addition, Ray Brown, attorney James Moon, and others contributed countless hours of research and review of historical documents, and found witnesses and evidence to assist in exonerating Stinney. Among those who aided the case were the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at the Northeastern University School of Law, which filed an amicus brief with the court in 2014. Frierson and the pro bono lawyers first sought relief through the Pardon and Parole Board of South Carolina.

In 1995, Stinney's seventh-grade teacher, W.L. Hamilton— a black man— spoke in an interview with The Sumter Item about George. Hamilton stated, "I remember the day he killed those children, he got into a fight with a girl at school who was his neighbor. In those days you didn't have to worry about children carrying guns and knives to school, but George carried a little knife and he scratched this child with his knife. I took him outside and we went for a little walk, and I talked to him. We went back into the school, in a submissive way, he begged for the child's pardon." Stinney's sister, Amie Ruffner, denied those allegations and contacted Hamilton after it was published. Amie stated, "I asked him why he would say something like that," she said. "He told me someone paid him to say it. I don't know who paid him but his exact words were, 'because they paid me.'" Hamilton died shortly after his interview was published.

While Stinney's family and civil rights advocates celebrated the overturning of Stinney's conviction, descendants of both Betty Binnicker and Mary Thames expressed disappointment at the court's ruling. They said that although they acknowledge Stinney's execution at the age of 14 is controversial, they never doubted his guilt. Binnicker's niece claimed she and her family have extensively researched the case, and argues that "people who [just] read these articles in the newspaper don't know the truth." She alleges that, in the early 1990s, a police officer who had arrested Stinney had contacted her and said, "Don't you ever believe that boy didn't kill your aunt." These family members contend that the claims of a deathbed confession from an individual confessing to the girls' murders have never been substantiated. Commenting on the public opinion regarding Stinney's case, she said that the case has always been "one-sided" and that Stinney has been incorrectly portrayed as a "poor pitiful little black boy". At the same time, another niece of Binnicker, while remaining convinced of Stinney's guilt, agreed that Stinney did not receive a fair trial and that he should not have received the death penalty, adding that she felt bad for Stinney and his family and that she hopes they eventually find peace. A childhood acquaintance of Binnicker also stated, "I'm sorry that they electrocuted him. I wish they had just sent him to prison."

Following Stinney's arrest, his father was fired from his job at the local sawmill and the Stinney family had to immediately vacate their company housing. The family feared for their safety. Stinney's parents did not see him again before the trial. He had no support during his 81-day confinement and trial; he was detained at a jail in Columbia, 50 miles (80 km) from Alcolu, due to the risk of lynching. Stinney was questioned alone, without his parents or an attorney. Although the Sixth Amendment guarantees legal counsel, this was not routinely observed until the United States Supreme Court's 1963 ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright that explicitly required representation through the course of criminal proceedings.

Since Stinney's exoneration, George Burke Jr., the son of a wealthy white businessman, George Burke Sr., has been the subject of speculation as a possible suspect for the murders. Burke Jr. died in 1947, aged 26. Stinney's mother had worked for the Burke family for a brief period. Stinney's sister recalled that her mother had once come home saying that Burke Sr. had made advances to her, and their father had told their mother to no longer go back. Stinney's sister claimed to have heard that the Burke boys had framed Stinney because "[their] mother didn't want to give it up." Burke Sr. conducted an initial search for the girls and was the owner of the territory behind Greenhill Baptist Church where the girls' bodies were found. He was also the foreman of the grand jury that indicted Stinney, and has been accused of helping steer the blame off of his son and onto Stinney. Two elderly woman in Alcolu recalled that Burke Jr. was known as a womanizer and for committing theft and getting away with it.

On March 23, 1944, the bodies of two young girls, Betty June Binnicker (1933–1944) and Mary Emma Thames (1937–1944), were discovered in Alcolu, South Carolina. The girls had gone missing the day before, as they did not return home the previous night. Binnicker and Thames both suffered severe blunt force trauma, resulting in penetration of both girls' skulls.

In 1944, George Stinney lived in Alcolu, South Carolina, with his father, George Stinney Sr. (1902–1965), mother Aimé (1907–1989), brothers John, 17, and Charles, 12, and sisters Katherine, 10, and Aimé, 7. Stinney's father worked at the town's sawmill, and the family resided in company housing. Alcolu was a small, working-class mill town, where white and black neighborhoods were separated by railroad tracks. The town was typical of small Southern towns of the time. Given segregated schools and churches for white and black residents, there was limited interaction between them.

The bodies of Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames were found in a ditch on the African-American side of Alcolu on March 23, 1944, after the girls failed to return home the night before. Stinney's father helped in the search. The girls had been beaten with a weapon, variously reported as a piece of blunt metal or a railroad spike. The girls were last seen riding their bicycles looking for flowers. As they passed the Stinneys' property, they had asked Stinney and his sister, Aimé, if they knew where to find "maypops", a local name for passionflowers. According to Aimé, she was with Stinney at the time the police later established the murders occurred. According to an article reported by the wire services on March 24, 1944, and published widely, with the mistake of the boy's name preserved, the sheriff announced the arrest of "George Junius" and stated that the boy had confessed and led officers to "a hidden piece of iron." Official records reported George's middle name as "Junius". However, his sister, Katherine Robinson stated he had no middle name. "I don't know where they came up with that name", she said. "And why Junius? That's an awful name. His full name was George Stinney Jr."

The entire proceeding against Stinney, including jury selection, took place on April 24, 1944. Stinney's court-appointed counsel was Charles Plowden, a tax commissioner campaigning for election to local office. Plowden did not challenge the three police officers who testified that Stinney confessed to the two murders. He also did not challenge the prosecution's presentation of two differing versions of Stinney's verbal confession. In one version, Stinney was attacked by the girls after he tried to help one girl who had fallen in the ditch, and he killed them in self defense. In the other version, he had followed the girls, first attacking Mary Emma and then Betty June. There is no written record of Stinney's confession apart from Deputy Newman's statement.

More than 1,000 white Americans crowded the courtroom, but no black Americans were allowed. As was typical at the time, Stinney was tried before an all-white jury (in 1944 most African-Americans in the South were disenfranchised and therefore not present on the rolls of those available to serve on juries). After deliberating for fewer than ten minutes, the jury found Stinney guilty of murder. Judge Philip H. Stoll sentenced Stinney to death by electrocution. There is no transcript of the trial and no appeal was filed by Stinney's counsel.

Stinney was executed on June 16, 1944, at 7:30 a.m. He was prepared for execution by electric chair, using a Bible as a booster seat because Stinney was too small for the chair. He was then restrained by his arms, legs, and body to the chair. An officer asked George if he had any last words to say before the execution took place, but he only shook his head. The executioner pulled a strap from the chair and placed it over George's mouth, causing him to break into tears, and he then placed the face mask over his face, which did not fit him as he continued sobbing. When the lethal electricity was applied, the mask covering slipped off, revealing tears streaming down Stinney's face. This perception was later contested by Terri Evans, the niece of Mary Emma Thames' mother, Lula Mae. Terri's uncle, Clyde Barnes, witnessed the execution. Barnes told Evans' father what he saw during the execution, which was then relayed to her years later. Her father stated, ″He said it was just a rumor that the hood had slipped and they did not put a stack of books under him.″ He was buried in an unmarked grave in Crowley.

George Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944), was an African American boy, who at the age of 14 was convicted, in a proceeding later vacated as an unfair trial, and executed, for the murders of two young white girls in March 1944 — Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 7 — in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed by electric chair in June 1944, thus becoming the youngest American with an exact birth date confirmed to be sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century.