State of South Carolina v. George Stinney, Jr.
Dec 17, 2014OUTCOME: Conviction vacated.
Spearheaded the exoneration case of George Stinney, Jr., the youngest defendant executed in the United States since the beginning of the 20th Century. In this 1944 case, Stinney, a Black-American youth ... , was accused of having brutally killed two young, white girls in a small South Carolina mill town. One month later, he was tried before a jury of 12 white men, convicted after 10 minutes of deliberation, then sentenced to death. Executed just 83 days following his arrest, Stinney was 14 years-old and weighed 95 lbs. In October 2013, re-opened the case using sworn affidavits from Stinney’s surviving siblings. Conducted extensive research and investigation in order to rebuild the trial record, interviewed previously-unheard witnesses ranging from New York to Arkansas, and consulted experts in the required fields. Drafted supplemental memoranda concerning the evidence and legal issues as the case continued to develop, culminating in a two-day hearing in January 2014. In December 2014, seven decades after Stinney’s death, the conviction was vacated, perhaps the first case in United States history where judicial process has set aside a conviction post-execution. USA Today’s “50 Stories from 50 States” named Stinney South Carolina’s biggest story in 2014.
