World News -- How late can justice come? Really! A circuit court judge threw out the case, 70 years after a South Carolina court found a 14 year-old boy guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. It is said that the boy was so small
that a phone book was used to help him fit into the electric chair. The decision to vacate the case against
George Stinney Jr. was arrived at on Wednesday morning by Judge Carmen Mullins. The black teen was sentenced to death in 1994
after being found guilty of beating two white girls to death.
Long road to justice
Civil society activists have worked for years to reopen the
case, stating that Stinney was coerced to confess the killings. Stinney weighed
only 47.5Kgs at the time of his arrest. According to official accounts, Stinney
had admitted beating the two girls, 11 years and 8 years with a railroad spike.
In 2009, his sister came forward to claim that she was with
him all day on the day the murders are alleged to have been committed. Stinney
was tried and executed within three months. The trial lasted on 3 hours, and
the twelve white judges used only 10 minutes to pass the sentence.
Stinney is often regarded as the youngest person executed in
the United States in the 20th Century. At the time of his execution,
14 years was the legal age for one to take criminal responsibility. It will be
interesting to see how things develop after the ruling.
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