George Stinney

George Junius Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944) was an African American boy who was wrongfully executed at the age of 14 after being convicted, during an unfair trial, for the murders of two white girls in March 1944 – Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 8 – in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death on a single day in April 1944 and then executed by electric chair on June 16, 1944.

A re-examination of Stinney's case began in 2004, and several individuals and the Northeastern University School of Law sought a judicial review. Stinney's murder conviction was vacated in 2014, with a South Carolina court ruling that he had not received a fair trial, and was thus wrongfully executed. Stinney is the youngest American with an exact birth date confirmed to be both sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century.