At age 14, George Junius Stinney, Jr. becomes the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.
George Junius Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944), was an African American boy who at the age of 14 was convicted, in a proceeding later vacated as an unfair trial in 2014, of murdering two young girls, Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 7, in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was executed by electric chair in June 1944, thus becoming the youngest American with an exact birth date confirmed to be sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century.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 conviction was vacated in 2014, seventy years after he was executed, when a court ruled that he had not received a fair trial, effectively clearing his name.