'So small the guards had trouble strapping him into the chair': Black Prosecutor Recruited to Defend Legal Lynching of 14 Yr. Old Black Boy

The Refinement of White Supremacy requires the use of racial shadowboxing. Like black on black crime in service of white domination [MORE], racial shadowboxing  occurs when victims of racism (non-white people) are directly or indirectly, "assigned", bribed, coerced, and/or otherwise influenced, by the racists, to speak or act to do harm to other victims of racism. White Supremacists oftentimes hide behind others whom they use as shadows of themselves. [MORE] In courtrooms across the nation for instance, non-white prosecutors are recruited to do the bidding of the white establishment- which must maintain non-white subordination while not appearing to do so. 

Here, black prosector, Chip Finney III (above) has been assigned to defend the racist conviction and state sanctioned execution of George Stinney which was carried out by a white judge, an all white jury, white prosecutors, a white sheriff and his white officers and the white media for the murder of an 11 yr old white girl. There was no appeal filed by his white defense counsel. At 14 years old, Stinney was the youngest person ever executed in the United States. He was so small that the guards had trouble strapping him into the chair and fitting the electrodes on. When the first jolt of electricity hit him, the mask fell off his face, revealing an expression of horror. [MORE]

From [HERE] The state prosecutor fighting a bid to overturn a 70-year-old jury verdict and death sentence given a 14-year-old African-American boy in 1944 ripped into the defense case Tuesday, sending a clear signal the defense has an uphill struggle to get a new trial. “The evidence here is too speculative, and the record too unclear, for this motion to succeed,” 3rd Circuit Solicitor Chip Finney told Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen in opening remarks to an overflow crowd at the Sumter County courthouse.

It was the first day of one of the most unusual criminal hearings in state history – the judge is hearing a motion to rule that the trial of young George Stinney Jr. in Clarendon County was so unfair, on so many grounds, that the jury verdict should be overturned. (in photo the "Ballad of George Stinney by Travis Somerville, who is white). 

The case of George Stinney Jr. stinks of circumstantial, unproven and unsubstantiated prosecutorial testimony combined with a host of other injustices. The list of questionable characters is heavy, they include; a judge with double standards, a prosecutor who mislead jurors and a Defense Tax lawyer who was not trained for Defense of Capital Cases preparing for an election that dropped the ball and totally misrepresented Stinney. Also don’t exclude the Racist Sheriff who may have been responsible fabricating the case from start to finish. The confession of George Stinney, Jr. was never recorded in police files Detectives offered the boy ice cream once they were done.

On day of the Murders on March 23, 1944-The defendant, a young George Stinney Jr. was walking his cow and happened to pass two white young white girls who were collecting “maypop” flowers. The two girls, 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and seven-year-old Mary Emma Thames, had crossed paths with George and his sister Katherine Stinney the day the two girls would eventually go missing. Binnicker and Thames’ bodies were later found in a ditch the following morning. Their skulls shattered into pieces and their bodies were so brutally beaten with a railroad tie rod that many medical experts felt a 95 pound boy could not impose that amount of damage and not leave physical scars to him. Stinney even participated in the manhunt for the murder of the girls, mistakenly telling the posse members that he saw the two girls “down by the railroad”

The Confession of Stinney was a historic miscarriage of justice and according to witnesses and court records the confession of George Stinney, Jr. was never recorded in police files and Three Sheriff’s offered the boy ice cream once they were done.

To this day, no physical evidence that he committed the crime exists. His trial — if you call it that —He was convicted and sentenced in one day of court which lasted less than two hours. Prosecution Testimony included three sheriff officers who claimed that Stinney had confessed, although that was the only evidence the prosecution presented. No outside witnesses were called. No defense evidence was presented. The boy faced his sentence without family who were forced to move away from the city for fear of lynching from the angry mobs. Stinney Jr. would be left to face trial alone 1,000 people-whites only crammed the South Carolina courthouse. Blacks weren’t allowed inside. Jury selection began at 10:00 am and a guilty verdict just after 5:00 p.m the all-White jury deliberated for all of 10 minutes in between lunch before sentencing him to death by electrocution. [MORE]

[Last night on the Lawrence O'Donnell show Joy Reid decontexualized the Stinney trial - that is, she discussed it without mention of the racist/white supremacist context that it occured in. The word "racial" was mentioned once. It was "racial" that O'Donnell recruited her for the 5 minute spot in the first place. We are so attached to what we have that we risk & do little to resist white supremacy or pursue justice.] 

The hearing resumes Wednesday for its second and final day. Mullen may issue a ruling at day’s end. [MORE]