14-year-old executed in 1944 for murdering two girls finally cleared

A 14-year-old African American boy executed for the murder of two girls has been cleared 70 years after being sent to the electric chair.

George Stinney Jnr, of Alcolu, South Carolina, was arrested for beating Mary Emma Thames, 8, and Betty June Binnicker, 11, to death in 1944 after witnesses said they had seen him picking flowers with them.

While he confessed to the crime, his family always maintained his admission only came from being scared and pressured by police.

There was no physical evidence linking him to the murders.

His trial lasted all of three hours, and his lawyer, a white man, called no witnesses, performed no cross-examinations, and there was no appeal, The Huffington Post reports.

It took a jury of 12 white men 10 minutes to decide to send Stinney to his death.

He was so small the electric chair's straps didn't fit him, and he had to sit on a phone book for his head to reach the electrode, WIS News reports.

Stinney's relatives had long fought with South Carolina authorities to review the case, only for it to be finally officially reopened in January.

Virtually all of the case's evidence had been lost in the years between.

"The state, as an entity, has very unclean hands," attorney Miller Shealy argued.

Eventually, seven decades after he was executed, George's name has been cleared.

"I can think of no greater injustice," Judge Carmen Mullen said in her ruling yesterday, which vacated the decision against the boy.

George's second cousin Irene Hill said while she feels he can finally rest in peace, such a prolonged miscarriage of justice means the decision is still cold comfort.

"I'm glad he got his day in court but what good can it do him now?" Ms Hill said.

"We can't bring him back, but we can restore his name."

South Carolina executed 289 people in the 20th century, and 82 percent of them were black, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Source: Huffington Post, WISTV