SOMETIMES IN HISTORY: Seventy years later, South Carolina judge exonerates black teen who was executed

Legal justice was a long time coming in the case of George Stinney, a 14-year-old black boy in rural South Carolina who became the youngest person executed in modern times when he was electrocuted 70 years ago for the murders of two white girls.

On Tuesday, Judge Carmen Mullins vacated the boy's conviction and cleared his name for the beating deaths of Mary Emma Thames, 7, and Betty June Binnicker, 11, in segregated Alcolu, S.C. The girls had been riding their bicycles when they disappeared in 1944. Their bodies were found in a watery ditch in the black side of town. Both had been attacked with a railroad spike.

Betty June Binnicker, 11, was beaten to death with a railroad spike, along with friend Mary Thames, 7, in rural South Carolina in 1944. Fourteen-year-old George Stinney was executed for the murders. On Tuesday, a judge vacated his conviction.

Mullins found "fundamental, Constitutional violations of due process," the judge said. She noted the lack of a credible defense during trial, and said the boy's confession, of which there were two versions, appeared to have been coerced. There were no witnesses and no physical evidence in the case.

RANDALL HILL/REUTERSAmie Ruffner, the sister of George Stinney, is seen with her family during January hearing in South Carolina to vacate the murder conviction of her brother, who was executed at age 14 for the murders of two white girls in 1944.

Stinney's sisters and a brother testified earlier this year at hearings on whether to overturn the conviction. "They took my brother away and I never saw my mother laugh again," said Amie Ruffner, 78. "I would love his name to be cleared."

JIMMY PRICEGeroge Stinney Jr., third from left, is seen in this 1944 newspaper photo entering South Carolina’s death house at the state prison in Columbia.

His 83-year-old brother, Charles, lives in Brooklyn. There was no answer when the Daily News phoned his home.

The victims' families opposed vacating the conviction, saying very little remained in the way of physical records from the trial, and that it would be impossible to determine exactly what happened decades ago in the Deep South courtroom.

The trial lasted only three hours. It took only 10 minutes for an all-white, all-male jury to convict Stinney. He was sent to the electric chair not quite three months later.