Two 1915 Executions and a Window on Today's Justice System

by Matt Kelley

Published October 11, 2009 @ 06:26AM PT

Syndicated radio talk show host Tom Joyner announced this week that he is seeking pardons in South Carolina for two of his great uncles,Thomas and Meeks Griffin, who were executed in the electric chair in 1915 for a murder evidence shows they probably didn't commit.

Joyner learned about his ancestors as part of Henry Louis Gates' African American Lives series on PBS last year, and now he's taking action to clear the names of his great uncles. It's an extraordinary case and an example of the deep roots of injustice and racial inequality in our criminal justice system - and I'm glad Joyner is giving this case the attention it deserves.

Gates' research found that the two men were executed for a murder based on the testimony of a man who pled guilty to being the lookout to spare his own life. Gates found evidence that this man may have been the lone real perpetrator and he might have pinned the crime on the Griffins because they were landowners and had money for an attorney. If this was the plan, it didn't work: the Griffins' lawyer had two days to prepare for trial and they were convicted just three months after the murder.

I write frequently on this blog about the 'modern era' of the death penalty in the U.S., but a look at the complete history of capital punishment can show us how far our criminal justice system has come since the founding of the nation -- and how far it still has to go. In the modern era, since Gregg v. Georgia reinstated executions in 1976, we have executed 1,176 people. In all, however, there have been 15,269 executions in the colonies and the United States since the 17th century, and about half of those executed were black. In 1915 alone, 131 people were executed in the U.S., 79 of them were black.

A jailhouse snitch may have sent these two innocent men to their death in 1915, and they certainly didn't have adequate representation. While we've made strides to address defense representation in the last forty years or so, incentivized snitches are still unabashedly used across the country with no corroboration for their stories. We've got work to do, and looking to the past is a good way to remind us of that.

Watch as Joyner learns the news on African American Lives 2.