In 1944, South Carolina executed 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. after a 10-minute trial. Decades later, a judge declared his conviction unjust. Pictured are George Stinney Jr. in an undated booking photo and an article from Atlanta Daily World on June 23, 1944.

The "Injustices" series, published by the USA TODAY Network in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative, seeks to confront the realities of racial injustice, reckon with their enduring effects, and preserve these narratives as part of America’s collective history.On June 16, 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 90-pound Black 14-year-old boy, was executed in the electric chair in Columbia, South Carolina. Three months earlier, on March 24, George and his sister were playing in their yard when two young white girls briefly approached and asked where they could find flowers. Hours later, the girls failed to return home, and a search party was organized to find them.

George joined the search party and casually mentioned to a bystander that he had seen the girls earlier. The following morning, their dead bodies were found in a shallow ditch.

George was immediately arrested for the murders and subjected to hours of interrogation without his parents or an attorney. The sheriff later claimed that George confessed to the murders, though no written or signed statement was presented.

George's father was fired from his job, and his family was forced to flee amid threats on their lives. On March 26, a mob attempted to lynch George, but he had already been moved to an out-of-town jail.

On April 24, George Stinney faced a sham trial virtually alone. No African Americans were allowed inside the courthouse, and his court-appointed attorney, a tax lawyer with political aspirations, failed to call a single witness. The prosecution presented the sheriff's testimony regarding George's alleged confession as the only evidence of his guilt.

An all-white jury deliberated for 10 minutes before convicting George Stinney of murder, and the judge promptly sentenced the 14-year-old to death. When George was executed, he was so small that the straps of South Carolina’s electric chair didn’t fit him properly, and state officials had him sit on a book for his electrocution. He remains the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.

George’s family members and various civil rights advocates have sought to clear his name of murder in recent years. In January 2014, nearly 70 years after George was executed, a judge held a two-day hearing, which included testimony from three of George’s surviving siblings, members of the search party and several experts. The state argued at the hearing that George’s conviction should stand.

The trial court disagreed and vacated the conviction, finding that George Stinney was fundamentally deprived of due process throughout the proceedings against him, that the alleged confession “simply cannot be said to be known and voluntary,” that the court-appointed attorney “did little to nothing” to defend George, and that his representation was “the essence of being ineffective.”

The judge concluded: “I can think of no greater injustice.”

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  • Equal Justice Initiative, “Court Acknowledges Wrongful Execution of 14-Year Old George Stinney,” December 19, 2014
  • Robertson, Campbell, “South Carolina Judge Vacates Conviction of George Stinney in 1944 Execution,” The New York Times, December 17, 2014
  • Chappell, Bill, “S.C. Judge Says 1944 Execution Of 14-Year-Old Boy Was Wrong,” NPR, December 17, 2014
  • Faber, Eli. The Child in the Electric Chair. University of South Carolina Press, 2022.
  • Mullen, Carmen T., Circuit Court judge, South Carolina, “Opinion vacating conviction of George Stinney, Jr.,” December 17, 2014
  • Team Ebony, “Film to Explore George Stinney, Jr. Execution,” Ebony Magazine, February 28, 2014

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: George Stinney Jr., 14, executed in 1944 after sham trial in South Carolina

Reporting by Equal Justice Initiative / USA TODAY

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