Pardon Sought for Black Teen Executed by Pennsylvania 84 Years Ago

84 years after Pennsylvania exe­cut­ed a black 16-year-old for the 1931 mur­der of his white school matron, the descen­dants of the boy’s tri­al lawyers are try­ing to exonerate him. 

Samuel Lemon, the great-grand­son of Alexander McClay Williams’ defense attor­ney, William Ridley (pic­tured), has researched the case and con­clud­ed that Williams was inno­cent of mur­der­ing Vida Robare. He is try­ing to obtain a posthu­mous par­don for Williams. 

Robare had been grant­ed a divorce from her ex-hus­band — whom Lemon believes com­mit­ted the mur­der — on grounds of ​“extreme cru­el­ty.” She was stabbed 47 times with an ice pick dur­ing the mur­der and suf­fered two bro­ken ribs and a skull fracture. 

The day after the mur­der, Chief County Detective Oliver N. Smith declared that “[t]his crime was com­mit­ted by a full grown and strong man. The woman was unmis­tak­ably ath­let­ic and could have fought off a boy.” 

Two days lat­er, Williams gave a con­fes­sion after police inter­ro­ga­tion in undoc­u­ment­ed cir­cum­stances. The con­fes­sion, which Lemon believes was coerced, did not match the details from the crime scene. ​“He did­n’t have the motive. He did­n’t have the time. He did­n’t have the abil­i­ty,” Lemon said. 

When he was sen­tenced to death, Williams shout­ed that he had been promised he would­n’t be exe­cut­ed if he con­fessed. The case bears strik­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties to the case of George Stinney, a 14-year-old black boy who was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury in South Carolina in 1944 for the mur­der of two young white girls. 

Stinney was exe­cut­ed 71 years ago this week, the youngest per­son exe­cut­ed in the United States in the 20^th cen­tu­ry. His entire tri­al and sen­tenc­ing last­ed just three hours. Stinney was grant­ed a posthu­mous exon­er­a­tion last year.