Jonathan Wall (14-year-old Black boy electric chair, deathbed confession shows he was innocent)

[Omaha Steve]

https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.wall

"In a South Carolina prison on June 16, 1944, guards walked a 14-year-old Black boy, bible tucked under his arm, to the electric chair. He used the bible as a booster seat. At 5' 1" and 95 pounds, the straps didn’t fit, and an electrode was too big for his leg. The switch was pulled, and the adult sized death mask fell from his face. Tears streamed from his wide-open, tearful eyes, and saliva dripped from his mouth. Witnesses recoiled in horror as they watched the execution of the youngest person in the United States in the past century.

George Stinney was accused of killing two White girls, 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames. Because there were no Miranda rights in 1944, Stinney was questioned without a lawyer and his parents were not allowed into the room. The sheriff at the time said that Stinney admitted to the killings, but there is only his word — no written record of the confession has been found. Reports even said that the officers offered Stinney ice cream for confessing to the crimes.



Stinney’s father, who had helped look for the girls, was fired immediately, and ordered to leave his home and the sawmill where he worked. His family was told to leave town prior to the trial to avoid further retribution. An atmosphere of lynch mob hysteria hung over the courthouse. Without family visits, the 14 year old had to endure the trial and death alone.


FULL story at link.

[MotherPetrie]

1. Hearbreaking beyond belief

[NYC_SKP]

2. Oh good jesus fuck!

Some of this shit is still happening today.

Fuck!

[SomethingFishy]

15. West Memphis 3...

If certain celebrities didn't take up the WM3 case Damien Echols surely would have been executed..

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. I read about Damien Echols. Celebrities did have to get involved.

I believe it was in Parabola magazine. He became a Buddhist.

I cannot recommend this magazine highly enough. Much food for thought in every issue.
www.parabola.org
Editor's blog: http://tracycochran.org

[SomethingFishy]

41. He's got a book out..

Life After Death.. It's an amazing read. A real eye opener on the justice and prison systems..

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. ...

[JI7]

4. the look on his face

when i first saw his pic i couldn't stop thinking of it for days.

[malaise]

6. Heart breaking

One day there will be justice

[RedCappedBandit]

5. This is why I'll never support the death penalty.

Those that do have innocent blood on their hands.

[PowerToThePeople]

7. George Stinney

For those of us who do not use facebook.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney

movie based on his story

[NYC_SKP]

16. Ricky Ray Rector

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector

[indepat]

8. Got to rank up there among one of the most despicable acts ever committed by the State

[roguevalley]

9. I remember watching a documentary about London and they paused before a prison that

is a tourist site now. The last person executed there was a 15 year old girl who stole a loaf of bread. She was hanged.

This child was tortured and murdered. He died without his family even getting to hold him. How the FUCK do you go on with your life after this?

[flvegan]

10. Backwoods bumblefucks murder someone in the name of revenge.

1944 or 2013, it's no different.

What a horrible bookmark in our timeline, this.

[Starry Messenger]

11. .

[sabrina 1]

12. How absolutely horrible! How on earth did his family ever survive this? And what kind of

monsters were responsible? I hope there is a hell, not the fire kind, the kind where the perpetrators of such horrors get to spend eternity suffering what they caused this child to suffer.

We can say this isn't happening anymore, and this was just 70 years ago (who the hell are we to point fingers at anyone else?) but it IS. Every Iraqi and Afghan and Pakistani, Yemini, Somalian child we kill, we are doing the same thing.

And do NOT forget the children in Abu Ghraib we tortured and sodomized and the 12 year old in Gitmo?

I feel sick! And we have people here actually defending this Government's foreign policies.

Poor, poor child, you just want to go back there and snatch him from their vicious talons and take him somewhere safe.

I will NEVER support the DP or Extra judicial killings ... in case anyone forgets we assassinated a 16 year old not so long ago with one of our drones. Shame, shame on this country.

[duhneece]

13. Thank you for seeing every child as valued

I wondered the same about his family, how difficult (impossible for me to imagine) finding peace, acceptance.

[MillennialDem]

14. Can you post the text of the rest of the story for those without a FB account?

[sabrina 1]

17. Here's a link to the story with a video news report which includes comments from his brother:

George Stinney,14, the youngest person to be executed in US history

Tragic story.

[MillennialDem]

32. Thanks. Supposedly there was a deathbed confession of someone involved in the case

though and the article doesn't mention it.

[sabrina 1]

35. There are some links in the article, I believe, that do mention the deathbed confession.

Apparently members of the family of the person who reportedly confessed, came forward with the information. I am not sure when this happened though. It is difficult to get the details but if you google the name of the boy a few articles do come up.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

18. That poor baby.

[mrmpa]

19. I read the article...............

I also like to find out about the people who post.............this is what I found

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jonathan-wall/53/135/778

Check out his CV. Morehouse College, Harvard Graduate and Law Schools. Worked in the Boston Mayor's office, etc. I would like to meet this young man.

[Greybnk48]

20. Truly sickening.

How adults could sanction the murder of this kid in cold blood is inconceivable to me. A bunch of hateful, ignorant hicks that probably justified their actions using the Bible.

[Number23]

21. There is no link in your OP except to a Facebook page. Could you post it, please?

[Egnever]

23. The facebook page is where the story is

You have to expand the post where the pic is.

[Number23]

24. Thanks, Egnever. I don't have a Facebook login so maybe that's the problem

Really nice to see you here again.

[Egnever]

25. Np

Nice to see you as well hope all is good.

Heres the part I wanted to see maybe you were looking for this part as well.




A few years ago, a family claimed that their deceased family member confessed to the murders of the two girls on his deathbed. The rumored culprit came from a well-known, prominent White family. Members of the man’s family served on the initial coroner’s inquest jury, which had recommended that Stinney be prosecuted.

The legal murder of George Stinney will forever haunt the American legacy. Although the world and this nation have undoubtedly changed for the better, race still often collides with justice and results in tragedy. Cases like George Stinney's cannot be erased, should never be forgotten, and are an important chapter in the story of Blacks in America.

[Omaha Steve]

28. That is the link to the OP

For more info try goggle. Sorry there wasn't more about this at the link.

[HiPointDem]

22. ...

[earcandle]

26. This is so sad. I am afraid to post it on FB because it will hurt people to know it.

At the same time, this needs to be heard.

What to do?

[Sunlei]

29. I'm ashamed the USA won't even face injustices like this. Here's a link to the entire case history.

please OP, post a link to the story for those who don't trust or use facebook. Looks like the story came off this wiki page-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney

[trumad]

30. The number one---by a million miles---why I am against the death penalty.

It has killed innocent people.

[freshwest]

40. A European friend said they knew the DP was wrong because it is carried out on the poor/unpopular.

They knew from WW2 and before that, but the way the Nazis did it really burned it into them and they did not forget.

It applies to the USA, too. If one has money, they can get a defense team to evade the death penalty.

That is not in keeping with equality and the inequality begins at the lowest level of the justice system, the police who enact the values of a community that promotes hate of other people to serve their economic interests.

Just a few thoughts on this case and our national character, which is not that out of place with much of the world. I think this is glaringly obvious, and it is not discussed in our political discourse, but I think it should be as most people have what they consider to be good reasons to vote as they do:

States with largely rural populations with a lot of land are so much more oppressive than the big cities that are more progressive in nature. Because you cannot live that many people that close without working to make things more equal, although it's a struggle. The unions, public sector, public education and infrastructure were tools to level the field, help people work with others to survive there.

In conserative areas, it's how they maintain land ownership by selecting something to make an 'other' and driving them out any way they can. It goes on in counties and cities but is much less obvious to the majority, but minorities have been in the crosshairs of this for generations. They know.

The KKK and the other manifestations of hatred were based on the desire of those with power to continue to hold onto that power, and that means land and resources. The reasons given to hate are not logical or rational. But they serve to cover up the agenda of keeping wealth in certain hands.

I'm coming to see that is what it is all about, no matter what it is called, and it goes straight down, not only to the instinct to survive, but to continue for generations. No one wants to talk of that hard reality that has been played upon by countless demagogues and reflects the fears and hatred of those who vote for them.

That is exactly what was done in this case, with his parents forced to flee. In the states where we see civil rights and voting rights stolen to maintain the wealth of the few, it is for that reason. When we hear the cries of 'just move out that hellhole' it's ceding the land to these oligarchic minded peoples. Sometimes, it is the only sane course.

But the loss to the person moving is considerable and impoverishing. Those who have to move again and again have to start from the bottom many times, if they do not possess a skill that is portable and pays their way anywhere. The areas they come from may or may not have taught them those skills. This is the basis of poverty.

They are the rolling stones that gather no moss, but they did not choose it, they were kicked down the road. The ones who drove them out, will be enriched, and those who stayed with them also gain some of what those driven out lost. This is the case in tribal societies where one drives the other away and gets what they cannot take with them as they go.

It's all theft when you get right down to it. Theft of wages, theft of freedom and rights, theft of land, theft of life and a future. These are the questions that are at the basis of every society, and may be called class warfare if one so chooses. Taxation is how the people's union or representative, that they banded together to get power, the government, annually storms the castle of the robber barons and reclaims some of the stolen loot. Which is why they scream so loud.

Just a couple of thoughts on a Sunday morning.

[madrchsod]

31. florida just electrocuted a mentally ill man...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/florida-execute-mentally-ill-john-ferguson

we have very little moral authority when it comes to judging other nation`s acts of cruelty

[ellie]

33. This fucking country.

[Enthusiast]

37. There are those that actually promote cruelty and intolerance.

Fascism cannot exist where there is justice, kindness and tolerance.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

34. A good story to quote at those who claims nothing has changed in the past 70 years,

Yes, there's a great deal still wrong with America, but in most respects things have gotten a lot better over the last half-century (and, indeed, over most periods of time before that), and it seems likely that that will continue to be the case.

Remember that on race (and arguably also on other social issues) George W Bush was a long way to the left of FDR, who was a long way left of Lincoln.

[sabrina 1]

36. George Bush lied to start a racist war on Muslims, killing and torturing millions of Muslims

and opening up an opportunity for every racist in this country to create yet another 'other' in this society. We WERE making progress in race relations where at least bigots had to keep their bigotry to themselves, occupying the fringes where they belonged.

Now it is perfectly fine to use terminology, on the media and elsewhere such as 'raghead' 'camel jockey' 'cave dweller' and to label all one billion Muslims on the planet as 'terrorists'. And that's the printable version of where Bush led this country backwards. Every bigot in the country jumped on the opportunity, now without fear of consequences, to regress once again to the old free for all against a segment of the population of this country and the world.

To mention Bush in the same breath as FDR, whose administration did address the issue of racism btw, is simply stunning.

[Enthusiast]

38. Thank you, sabrina 1.

You are the best.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

39. Would Bush have refused to congratulate Jesse Owens because of his race?

Did he preside over a government that enforced racial segregation?

A step backwards from a long way ahead still leaves you in front.