Photo credit : #jeff Mcmahan
THE YOUNGEST PERSON TO BE EXECUTED IN THE 20th CENTURY...
George Junius Stinney, Jr. (October 1, 1929 – June 16, 1944).
He was an African American boy, lived in Alcolu, Clarendon County, South Carolina,the 14-year-old lived with his father, George Stinney Sr., mother Aimé, brothers John, 17, and Charles, 12, and sisters Katherine, 10, and Aimé, 7.
George Sr. worked at the town's sawmill, and the family resided in company housing, alcolu was a small, working-class mill town, where white and black neighborhoods were separated by railroad tracks, the town was typical of small Southern towns of the time, given segregated schools and churches for white and black residents, there was limited interaction between them.
George junius stinney jr. Is electrocuted in Columbia s.c, at 14 years, seven month and twenty-nine days, he is the youngest person to be executed in the 20th century in U.S.
Police arrested 14-year-old George Stinney as a suspect for the killing of Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, seven, were found, side by side,Their murders stunned the towns people, many of whom had taken part in a search for them the day before,the girls had been gathering flowers when they were followed, attacked and beaten so severely their skulls were fractured,the bodies of the girls, both white, were found on the black side of town,it has been emerged that,Suspicion quickly fell on a 14-year-old black boy,named George Junius Stinney, Jr,who it emerged, had seen the girls the previous day.
Police said that Stinney confessed to the crimes and, although there was no physical evidence,and however, Judge Mullen ruled that his confession was likely coerced and thus inadmissible.
He was charged with capital murder, tried, convicted and executed by the state – all in the space of 83 days.
He was the youngest person to be executed by the United States in the 20th century.
A re-examination of the Stinney case began in 2004, and several individuals and North eastern University School of Law sought a judicial review.
His conviction was overturned in 2014, 70 years after he was executed when a court ruled that he had not received a fair trial.
That is in December 2014, George’s murder conviction was overturned by a South Carolina judge.,Judge Carmen Mullen revealed that the boy’s lawyer had called "few or no witnesses," and failed to properly cross-examine his accusers.
IMAGINE, you are accused of murder,you are poor so, that give an impression that you have a small chance of winning without a good lawyer,there is a very little evidence to support that you are innocent,but still get put to death.
Later on,after further research and investigation,p
You were killed for someone else's murder.
For example :
FORMER U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS(DECEASE
SAID :
" Within the last year, Jim Liebman, who’s a professor at the Columbia Law School and was a former law clerk of mine, has written a book…called The Wrong Carlos… He has demonstrated, I think, beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a Texas case in which they executed the wrong defendant, and that the person they executed did not in fact commit the crime for which he was punished. And I think it’s a sufficient argument against the death penalty… that society should not take the risk that that might happen again, because it’s intolerable to think that our government, for really not very powerful reasons, runs the risk of executing innocent people".
And also KOfi ANAN said :
"Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process".
MARTIN LUTHER KING, jr. Once said :
"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars".
J. R. R TOLKIEN, (He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings)
said :
said :
" Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends".
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU,In his book "the social contract" said :
" In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society”.
The death penalty is discriminatory,
Some governments use it to silence their opponents,Where
Mistakes that are made cannot be unmade.
An innocent person may be released from prison for a crime they did not commit, but an execution can never be reversed.
Every day, men, women, even children, await execution on death row, Whatever their crime, whether they are guilty or innocent, their lives are claimed by a system of justice that values retribution over rehabilitation.
As long as a prisoner remains alive, he or she can hope for rehabilitation,
Because of the unacceptably high possibility of an erroneous conviction, I am a reluctant opponent of the death penalty,relucta
But for me at least, it is no consolation to be told these murderers will be locked away in isolation for decades.
It's indeed pointless to teach someone a lesson by killing him,the death penalty is an inhumane and cruel act,that has been proven to be inefficient,it has also occurred before that the death penalty has made false accusations killing innocent people.
Although,some said that the death penalty bring justice to the society and helps to save the world from the people who damaged it.
Using the same or worse methods does not make us better than them.
I don’t want anyone killed in my name, in our name.
When the government prosecutes, convicts, sentences, and executes defendants, we the people are the plaintiff.
The death penalty shall be abolish or AlTERNATIVELY strict procedure in order to,shall be adhere to.
There are also personal, political, religious, and spiritual reasons to oppose the death penalty as a punishment for a crime.
The sooner we kill the death penalty,or amend strict procedures,the better it’ll be. Let’s not wait any longer.
THANK YOU FOR READING.
GOD BLESS NIGERIA
REFERENCES :
3. Ibid.
4. https://
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