Stinney family joins historian in asking state officials, governor for formal apology
ROBERT J. BAKER / TIMESGeorge Frierson III, a local historian and a member of the Clarendon School District 3 Board of Trustees, worked for nearly a decade on trying to have 14-year-old George Stinney Jr.'s murder conviction and subsequent execution vacated. He challenged Gov. Nikki Haley and other state officials Saturday in Alcolu to issue a formal apology to both the family and the "citizens of South Carolina, in whose names this wrongful execution was taken out."
A local historian and Clarendon School District 3 board member who worked for more than 10 years with the family members of the George Stinney Jr. to have the 14-year-old's 70-year murder conviction overturned challenged state officials and Gov. Nikki Haley on Saturday to issue a formal apology to the boy's family.
George Frierson saw Circuit Court Judge Carmen Mullin vacate Stinney's murder conviction in December 2014, nearly a year after a two-day hearing in Sumter County on a obscure legal doctrine where attorneys for the family argued that Stinney's conviction for the murder of two young Alcolu girls in 1944 and his subsequent execution were a violation of his Constitutional rights and fundamentally and legally wrong.
"We are challenging the officials of the state of South Carolina to step up to the plate and give a formal apology to the Stinney family and the citizens of South Carolina for this wrongful act that was committed in the name of the citizens of South Carolina," Frierson said at a home off U.S. 521 near Alcolu where a stone was placed in June 2014 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Stinney's execution.
Frierson and others - including Stinney's extended family - came together Saturday not only to challenge state leaders to "wipe the record clean," as cousin Irene Hill-Lawson said, but to rededicate the stone with the information that their relative had been "exonerated by a judge who saw that things were wrong."
"I watched this week as the Confederate flag was taken off the State House grounds, and I applaud Gov. Haley for that action," Hill-Lawson said. "But I ask her now to come forward and grant my family this absolution."
Frierson agreed.
"Judge Mullin made it clear: This was wrong," Frierson said. "So, if it was wrong, I want somebody to express remorse, so we are asking the state to do that."
Manninglive.com will have more photos and more information from this ceremony and Frierson's and the family's challenge on Sunday.
