USA - South Carolina. Judge Carmen Tevis Mullen today vacated the conviction of George Stinney Jr., a black teen executed in 1944 for the murder of 2 white girls

Judge Carmen Tevis Mullen today vacated the conviction of George Stinney Jr., a black teen executed in 1944 for the murder of 2 white girls, saying he had not received a fair trial. George Stinney was, at age 14, the youngest person to be executed in the United States in the past century. He was convicted of killing Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 7, and was executed 3 months after their deaths. In her ruling, Judge Tevis Mullen wrote that she was not overturning the case on its merits but on the failure of the court to grant Stinney a fair trial. "From time to time we are called to look back to examine our still-recent history and correct injustice where possible," she wrote. "I can think of no greater injustice than a violation of one's constitutional rights, which has been proven to me in this case by a preponderance of the evidence standard." The girls disappeared on March 23, 1944, after leaving home in the small mill town of Alcolu on their bicycles to look for wildflowers. They were found the next morning in a shallow ditch behind a church, their skulls crushed. Stinney was taken into custody and confessed to the killings within hours of the bodies being found, according to Mullen's ruling. His trial, before an all-white jury, lasted one day.