Pardon for 'sex slave' executed for killing her abusive captor

Ms Baker was a black maid, aged 44, who in March 1945 became the first, and only, woman to die in Georgia's electric chair. Her crime was to have killed her white master - a man who, she claimed, kept her as a sexual slave and she killed in self-defence when he was about to attack her with a crowbar.

Now, for only the third time in its history, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has issued a posthumous pardon. On 30 August, the board will present a proclamation to her descendants, acknowledging that the death sentence was a terrible miscarriage of justice.

A spokesman said there was no dispute that Ms Baker committed the crime, but the board's members had concluded that the decision to allow the execution to go ahead was a "grievous error" and this was a "case called out for mercy".

In another age, or another place, Ms Baker would have been convicted of aggravated manslaughter at worst, an offence which usually carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.

"In some ways it's 60 years too late," said John Cole Vodicka, director of a prison rights group that has helped her descendants in the fight for a pardon.

"But it's gratifying to see that this blatant instance of injustice has finally been recognised for what it was - a legal lynching."

E B Knight, her employer, was killed on 30 April 1944.

The trial of Ms Baker was set for 14 August 1944. On that day, an all-white, all-male jury was picked, the trial was held, a verdict of murder was reached, and the judge pronounced the death sentence. No forensic evidence was presented, Ms Baker's state appointed lawyer called no outside witnesses in her defence, and hearsay evidence against her was allowed.

The appeals process was non-existent. Her lawyer dropped an initial move for a retrial, and the pardons board turned down her demand for clemency. On 6 January 1945, Ms Baker was moved to death row, and two months later she was executed.

In today's United States by contrast, appeals in capital murder cases routinely last for years, and sometimes drag on for decades. Lena Baker was put to death less than seven months after she was sentenced, barely 10 months after committing the crime.

During the trial, she testified that Knight, a man 23 years older than her, had held her against her will in a grist mill and threatened to kill her if she left. She admitted seizing his gun and shooting him, but insisted she acted in self-defence when he moved against her with a crowbar. "He would have killed me if I had not done what I did," she said, according to the official trial transcript (which runs to just 10 pages).

It has never been established whether she was forced into her sexual relationship with Knight, or agreed to it. But the very fact of the relationship violated the racist taboos of the segregated South. To avoid inflaming these tensions, there was no funeral.

After the execution, her body was secretly taken 200 miles to her home town, where she was buried in an unmarked grave outside the church where she had been a member of the choir.

Her family was not permitted to mark the grave with a concrete slab bearing her name until 1998. Every year thereafter family members and supporters have gathered at the spot on the anniversary of her execution.

In May 2003, Lena Baker finally received a proper funeral. Now, in a fortnight's time, the restoration of her reputation will be complete.

Roosevelt Curry, Ms Baker's great-nephew, who has led the effort to clear her name, said: "I believe she's somewhere around God's throne and can look down and smile."