May 23, 2026 · 20 min · 13 segments
The youngest person to be executed in United States history was 14 years old and his name was George Stinney Jr. George Stinney was 14 when he was accused, convicted, and murdered for a crime he…
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A corrections officer is preparing to take an inmate on the long walk to an old rickety chair where electricity will be used to put this inmate to death.
But that old rickety chair is too big for this inmate.
The harness to the chair is too big because that inmate is too small.
His pants are too small because he's only 95 pounds, because he's just a boy.
That inmate is 14 years old.
So they do something.
They take a Holy Bible and place it on the chair so that the boy can fit in the chair, and the electricity can properly do its job.
And in a few moments, the state of South Carolina will execute him for a crime that he did not commit, and he'd become the youngest person put to death in the United States in the 20th century.
But here's something you need to know before we go any further.
It's about who could have really committed the crime that George was accused of, and how the state failed this child at every turn and made sure that no one ever found out the truth.
It's how Jim Crow manufactured verdicts and made it so that Black lives were expendable, no matter how young.
I'm Andre, and this is Redacted History.
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You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
A corrections officer is preparing to take an inmate on the long walk to an old rickety chair where electricity will be used to put this inmate to death.
But that old rickety chair is too big for this inmate.
The harness to the chair is too big because that inmate is too small.
His pants are too small because he's only 95 pounds, because he's just a boy.
That inmate is 14 years old.
So they do something.
They take a Holy Bible and place it on the chair so that the boy can fit in the chair, and the electricity can properly do its job.
And in a few moments, the state of South Carolina will execute him for a crime that he did not commit, and he'd become the youngest person put to death in the United States in the 20th century.
But here's something you need to know before we go any further.
It's about who could have really committed the crime that George was accused of, and how the state failed this child at every turn and made sure that no one ever found out the truth.
It's how Jim Crow manufactured verdicts and made it so that Black lives were expendable, no matter how young.
I'm Andre, and this is Redacted History.
