South Carolina executed 14 year old teen!

George Junius Stinney, Jr. was 14 years old when South Carolina executed him, making him the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century. He was convicted of murdering two girls. Now there's a move to clear his name. Host Michel Martin speaks with Frank Wu, chancellor and dean of the University of California Hastings College of the Law. Wu has been an outspoken advocate for clearing Stinney's name.

On April 24, 1944, just one month after his arrest, Stinney went on trial for his life. The trial would take place at the county seat in the City of Manning. Since angry residents already ran the Stinney family out of town, George had virtually no one on his side. The county court appointed a local attorney to assist in his defense.  He was a 30-year-old aspiring politician named Charles Plowden. His goal in the case was simple: to provide a bare bones defense that would fulfill his responsibilities as a defense attorney and, at the same time, not anger the local residents. Since Stinney already confessed to the police and his guilt was firmly established, there was a general feeling that a trial was only a formal requirement.

By the time the trial began on April 24 at the Clarendon County Courthouse, the case was well known throughout the region, though outside the county, it was not widely reported. Outside South Carolina, it was virtually unknown. At the courthouse, it was standing room only, for well over 1,500 people had come to witness the spectacle. The stairways and hallways were filled to capacity. At 10 AM that morning, jury selection began. The State, published in Columbia, reported that “the state rejected four and the defense eight jurors before the jury was impounded at 12:30” (Rowe, p. 1). Even more ominous, however, was the jury composite.  The panel consisted of 12 white men: no blacks and no women. Of course, racial make-up of a jury does not guarantee nor prevent justice. The only standard, in 1944 as well as now, is that a juror must be able to maintain a degree of fairness and objectivity that displays no bias to either side. Given the publicity of the murders and the nature of the crime, the defense would certainly have been better served by a change of venue. Defense Attorney Charles Plowden, however, made no such motion. After a brief lunch, testimony began. “The trial began at 2:30 PM after eight minor cases had been disposed of in the morning” (The Daily Item, April 25, 1944).


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Retrieved from various sources and the pages of America’s dark ages, as recent as 1944!