A judge has vacated the 1944 conviction of George Stinney Jr., in a ruling his trial was marred by “fundamental Constitutional violations of due process.”
In fact, the 14-year-old black boy’s “trial” was a total sham. Stinney was blamed for the murders of two young white girls that probably were committed by a member of a prominent white family, who allegedly made a deathbed confession, according to a historian who has researched the case. Stinney’s family was run out of town before the trial. The trial lasted only 2 1/2 hours, the only “evidence” against him was the testimony of 3 cops who claimed he confessed, which he denied and of which there is no written record, and his defense lawyer was a local politician running for office in a town inflamed against Stinney by racial prejudice, who called no witnesses, conducted no cross-examination, and presented no defense on behalf of his client. A lawyer would get disbarred for that today.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-carolina-boy-executed-for-1944-murder-is-exonerated/
Although the judge didn’t explicitly call Stinney’s electrocution a “lynching,” now that he’s legally exonerated, that’s what it was.
In fairness to South Carolina, that state doesn’t strap 4-foot-tall 14-year-old black kids into its electric chair and throw the switch on them anymore. Today, they throw together Boeing airplanes with “right-to-work” labor paid $10 an hour, which are then shipped to Washington State for disassembly and reassembly by union aerospace workers who know what they’re doing. South Carolina is more civilized now.
George Stinney Jr. in 1944 (Wikipedia)