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Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States

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In the United States, capital punishment for juveniles existed until March 2, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in Roper v. Simmons. Prior to Roper, there were 71 people on death row in the United States for crimes committed as juveniles.[1] The last juvenile offender to be executed in the United States was 32-year-old Scott Hain in Oklahoma in 2003. The last female juvenile offender to be executed in the United States was Virginia Christian, who was executed in Virginia in 1912.

The death penalty for juveniles in the United States was first applied in 1642. Before the 1972 Furman v. Georgia ruling that instituted a death penalty moratorium nationwide, there were approximately 343 executions of juveniles in the United States. In the years following the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia ruling that overturned Furman and upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty, there were 22 executions of juvenile offenders before the practice was outlawed. One of the juvenile offenders had received another death sentence for a separate murder committed at age 18, but was executed specifically for the murder he committed when was 17 since he exhausted his appeals in that case first.

Prior to Roper, states had varying minimum ages for defendants to qualify for the death penalty; 19 states did not permit the execution of juveniles, while the remaining 19 retentionist states allowed juveniles as young as 16 or 17 at the time of their crime to be executed, albeit due to lengthy appeals processes, none of them were still juveniles by the time of their executions.

History

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Pre-Furman

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Further information: Furman v. Georgia

Since 1642, in the Thirteen Colonies, the United States under the Articles of Confederation, and the United States under the Constitution, an estimated 364 juveniles have been put to death by the individual states (colonies, before 1776) and the federal government. The first confirmed juvenile to be executed in the United States was Thomas Granger, executed for buggery involving several animals, including "a mare, a cow, two goats, divers sheep, two calves, and a turkey." The execution took place on September 8, 1642, when Granger was 16 or 17 years old. Prior to the execution, the animals involved in Granger's case were slaughtered in front of him.[2][3]

The youngest person to have been executed in the 20th century was likely Joe Persons, a black boy executed by hanging in Georgia on September 24, 1915, for raping an 8-year-old white girl on June 14, 1915. On the gallows, Persons admitted his guilt to the nearly 50 witnesses present.[4] His age has not been confirmed. He was variously reported to have been 12, 13, 14, 15, or "not older than 14" at the time of his execution. However, he was reportedly 13 at the time of the crime. He weighed only 65 pounds.[5][6][7][8]

The youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century who had a confirmed birth date (born October 21, 1929), was George Stinney, a 14-year-old black boy who was electrocuted in South Carolina on June 16, 1944, for the murders of two white girls (ages 7 and 11). In 2014, Stinney's conviction was posthumously vacated since he had not received a fair trial, albeit the judge who made this ruling stated that Stinney "may well have committed this crime."[9] The verdict of this case was posthumously overturned in 2014. The third youngest was Irving Hanchett (born July 3, 1895), a 14-year old white boy who was executed by hanging in Florida on May 6, 1910, for the murder of a 13-year-old white girl, whom he stabbed 63 times after she spurned his advances.[10]

James Arcene, a Native American, was 10 years old when he was involved in a robbery and murder in Arkansas. However, Arcene was not recaptured until 1884. He was 23 years old when he and a codefendant, who was an adult at the time of the murder, were executed by hanging on June 18, 1885.[11]

The last person to be executed for a crime committed at the age of 14 was 15-year-old James Lewis Jr., who was executed for murder in Mississippi on July 23, 1947. The last person to be executed for a crime committed at the age of 15 was 18-year-old Irvin Mattio, who was executed for murder in Louisiana on January 9, 1948.[12] Going forward, all executions of juvenile offenders were of those who were at least 16 years old at the time of their crimes. The last execution of a juvenile was 17-year-old Leonard Shockley, who was executed for murder in Maryland on April 10, 1959. Shockley was also the last person to be executed for a crime committed at the age of 16 in the pre-Furman era. Nobody has been under the age of 19 at the time of execution since 1964, when 19-year-old James Andrew Echols was executed in Texas for participating the gang rape of a woman when he was 17. Echols was the last juvenile offender to be executed in the United States prior to Furman v. Georgia.[13][14]

The peak decade for juvenile executions was the 1940s, when approximately 58 juvenile offenders were executed in the United States.[15] Additionally, on June 1, 1945, the United States Army executed two German youths, 16-year-old Heinz Petry and 17-year-old Josef Schöner, for espionage committed against American forces during the final stages of World War II. The two boys were part of the Werwolf, a Nazi plan for continued resistance after the occupation of Germany. Although the sentences normally would've been commuted to prison terms, the sentences were upheld in order to compel Nazi fanatics into ceasing all resistance.[16][17]

For further discussion, see Capital punishment by the United States military.

Post-Furman

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Pre-Roper minimum ages for executions by state[18]
  No capital punishment
  Minimum age of 18
  Minimum age of 17
  Minimum age of 16

Since the reinstatement of the capital punishment in 1976[19] when the Supreme Court ruled that it did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, 22 people have been executed for crimes committed while they were under the age of 18. All of the 22 executed individuals were males, and all were in states located in the South. Twenty-one of them were age 17 when the crime occurred; one, Sean Sellers, was 16 years old when he murdered his mother, stepfather, and a store clerk. Another, Jay Kelly Pinkerton, had received another death sentence for a separate murder committed at age 18 and would not have been spared execution under Roper.[20]

Due to the process of appeals since 1976, all 22 juvenile offenders were adults when they were executed. The youngest at the time of execution was Steve Edward Roach, who was 23. The oldest at the time of execution was Joseph John Cannon, who was 38. Jay Kelly Pinkerton was executed solely for the murder he committed at age 17 since he exhausted his appeals in that case first.

In Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), the Supreme Court first held unconstitutional imposition of the death penalty for crime committed aged 15 or younger. But in the 1989 case Stanford v. Kentucky, it upheld capital punishment for crimes committed aged 16 or 17. Justice Scalia's plurality part of his opinion famously criticized Justice Brennan's dissent by accusing it of "replac[ing] judges of the law with a committee of philosopher-kings".[21] Justice O'Connor was the key vote in both cases, being the lone justice to concur in the two.

Sixteen years later, Roper v. Simmons overruled Stanford. Justice Kennedy, who concurred with Scalia's opinion in Stanford, instead wrote the opinion of the court in Roper and became the key vote. Justice O'Connor dissented.

Before 2005, of the 38 U.S. states that allowed capital punishment:

  • 19 states and the federal government had set a minimum age of 18,
  • 5 states had set a minimum age of 17, and
  • 14 states had explicitly set a minimum age of 16, or were subject to the Supreme Court's imposition of that minimum.

At the time of the Roper v. Simmons decision, there were 71 juvenile offenders were on death row: 13 in Alabama; four in Arizona; three in Florida; two in Georgia; four in Louisiana; five in Mississippi; one in Nevada; four in North Carolina; two in Pennsylvania; three in South Carolina; 29 in Texas; and one in Virginia.[22]

A 72nd juvenile offender, Laquan T. Robinson in Delaware, had been condemned by a jury, but had his sentence hearing delayed to await the outcome of the ruling. The decision also resulted in a judge reducing the sentence of Robinson's adult accomplice, Darrell Page, to life imprisonment on the grounds that his sentence should not be harsher than Robinson's sentence.[23] A 74th juvenile offender, serial killer Harvey Miguel Robinson, remains on death row for another murder he committed after turning 18. Four other juvenile offenders had been awaiting new trials or resentencing hearings that were delayed to await the ruling: William Arthur Kelly and Robert Lewis Conyers in South Carolina and James Davolt and Christopher Huerstel in Arizona.[24][25]

Few juveniles have ever been executed for their crimes. Even when juveniles were sentenced to death, few of them were executed. In the United States, youths under the age of 18 were executed at a rate of 20–27 per decade, or about 1.6–2.3% of all executions from 1880s to the 1920s.[19]

List of juveniles executed in the United States since 1976

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  Indicates cases where the executed defendant was under another sentence of death for a separate murder committed as an adult

No. Name Date of
execution 		Ethnicity Age Method State Victims
At offense At execution
1 Charles Francis Rumbaugh September 11, 1985 White 17 28 Lethal injection Texas Michael Fiorillo, 58, white[26]
2 James Terry Roach January 10, 1986 25 Electrocution South Carolina Carlotta Harris and Thomas Taylor, 14 and 17, white[27][a]
3 Jay Kelly Pinkerton May 15, 1986 White 17[b] 24 Lethal injection Texas Sarah Donn Lawrence, 30, white[28][c]
4 Dalton Prejean May 18, 1990 Black 17 30 Electrocution Louisiana Donald Cleveland, 25, white (policeman)[29][d]
5 Johnny Frank Garrett February 11, 1992 White 28 Lethal injection Texas Tadea Benz, 76, white[30]
6 Curtis Paul Harris July 1, 1993 Black 31 Timothy Michael Merka, 27, white[31]
7 Frederick Lashley July 28, 1993 29 Missouri Janie Tracy, 55, black (foster mother)[32]
8 Ruben Montoya Cantu August 24, 1993 Hispanic 26 Texas Pedro Gomez, 25, Hispanic[33]
9 Christopher Burger December 7, 1993 White 33 Electrocution Georgia Roger Honeycutt, 25, white[34]
10 Joseph John Cannon April 24, 1998 38 Lethal injection Texas Anne Walsh, 45, white[35]
11 Robert Anthony Carter May 18, 1998 Black 34 Sylvia Reyes, 17, Hispanic[36][e]
12 Dwayne Allen Wright October 14, 1998 26 Virginia Saba Tekle, 34, black[37][f]
13 Sean Richard Sellers February 4, 1999 White 16 29 Oklahoma Three people, white[38][g]
14 Douglas Christopher Thomas January 10, 2000 17 26 Virginia James B. Wiseman and Kathy J. Wiseman, both 33, white[39]
15 Steve Edward Roach January 13, 2000 23 Mary Ann Hughes, 70, white[40]
16 Glen Charles McGinnis January 25, 2000 Black 27 Texas Leta Ann Wilkerson, 30, white[41]
17 Gary Lee Graham June 22, 2000 36 Bobby Grant Lambert, 53, white[42]
18 Gerald Lee Mitchell October 22, 2001 33 Charles Angelo Marino, 20, white[43][h]
19 Napoleon Beazley May 28, 2002 25 John E. Luttig, 63, white[44]
20 T.J. Jones August 8, 2002 Willard Lewis Davis, 75, white[45]
21 Toronto Markkey Patterson August 28, 2002 24 Ollie Brown, 3, black (cousin's daughter)[46][i]
22 Scott Allen Hain April 3, 2003 White 32 Oklahoma Michael William Houghton and Laura Lee Sanders, 27 and 22, white[47]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Also pleaded guilty to his role in the murder of Betty Swank (21, white)
  2. ^ Pinkerton received another death sentence for a murder committed at age 18, but was executed for the murder he committed at age 17 since he exhausted his appeals in that case first.
  3. ^ Also murdered Sherry Welch (25, white). Pinkerton was 18 when he murdered Welch and was sentenced to death for her murder. However, he exhausted his appeals in the other case first.
  4. ^ Previously convicted of murdering John Doucet (37, white) when he was 14 and served time in juvenile detention.
  5. ^ Also murdered R. B. Scott (63, white).
  6. ^ Also murdered Odell Thomas (31, black) Washington, D.C. and Reginald L. Turman (24, black).
  7. ^ Robert Bower, 32, his stepfather Paul Bellofatto, 43, and his mother Vonda Bellofatto, 32.
  8. ^ Also murdered Hector Manguia (18, Hispanic).
  9. ^ Also murdered Brown's mother and sister, 25-year-old Kimberly Brewer and 6-year-old Jennifer Brewer.

References

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  1. ^ "The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v. Simmons". Death Penalty Information Center.
  2. ^ Mayflower Families - Morality and Sex
  3. ^ Records of the Colony of New Plymouth
  4. ^ "negros boy Joe Persons hanged for assaulting 8 yr old girl". The Guthrie Daily Leader. September 27, 1915. p. 2. Retrieved November 18, 2025.
  5. ^ Hearn, Daniel Allen (December 22, 2015). Legal Executions in Georgia: A Comprehensive Registry, 1866-1964. McFarland. ISBN 9781476620008.
  6. ^ "Hang 13-Year-Old Boy in Georgia". Evening Public Ledger. September 24, 1915. p. 1. Archived from the original on July 14, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023. Joe Persons, a 13-year-old negro boy, was executed in Jackson, Ga., today.
  7. ^ "Small Boy Hanged". Hopkinsville Kentuckian. September 30, 1915. p. 1. Archived from the original on July 14, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023. Joe Persons, a negro boy not more than 14 years old, was legally hanged at Jackson, Ga., Friday for criminally assaulting a white child 8 years old. The boy admitted his guilt and said he was ready to die. He weighed on [sic] 75 pounds.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. ^ Espy, M. Watt (January 7, 1986). "Death for Juvenile Crimes: Execution, a Practice Dating to 1642, May Continue This Week". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 14, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023. When Joe Persons was hanged at Jackson, Ga., on Sept. 24, 1915, contemporary newspaper accounts estimated his age as being "from 12 to 15," but the same accounts, saying that he weighed only 65 pounds, would indicate that he was nearer the former than the latter age. Because he was so immature and underdeveloped, local officials actually debated the practicality of adding weights to his body to ensure a successful hanging.
  9. ^ McVeigh, Karen (March 22, 2014). "George Stinney was executed at 14. Can his family now clear his name?". The Observer. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
  10. ^ "Documentation for the execution of Irving Hanchett". Espy Archive. May 6, 1910.
  11. ^ Before the needles Archived 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ "Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988)". Justia Law. June 29, 1988. Retrieved December 10, 2025.
  13. ^ Best Web Archived 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ "Juvenile News and Developments - Previous Years". Archived from the original on December 15, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2007.
  15. ^ "History of the Juvenile Death Penalty". The Washington Post. July 19, 1988. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  16. ^ "The Execution Of The Teenage Hitler Youth Spies". The Untold Past. March 26, 2023. Retrieved July 20, 2025.
  17. ^ "Execution of Spies by Firing Squad". British Pathe. Retrieved August 21, 2025.
  18. ^ "Status of the juvenile death penalty prior to Roper v. Simmons by state". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved June 7, 2025.
  19. ^ a b Bartollas, C., & Miller, S. J. (2017). Juvenile justice in America. Boston: Pearson.
  20. ^ "Young killer executed". UPI. May 15, 1986. Retrieved July 17, 2025.
  21. ^ "Stanford v. Kentucky". law.cornell.edu. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  22. ^ For detailed summaries of each of these juveniles, see "The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v. Simmons". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
  23. ^ O’Sullivan, Sean (July 20, 2014). "Judge's ruling backs harsher penalty". The News Journal. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  24. ^ "Frances - court's landmark decision affects Lonny". The Arizona Republic. March 2, 2005. p. 2. Retrieved January 21, 2026.
  25. ^ "Death Row Inmate Resentenced". wltx.com. September 23, 2005. Retrieved January 9, 2026.
  26. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #048 - Charles Rumbaugh
  27. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #051 - James Terry Roach
  28. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #057 - Jay Pinkerton
  29. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #128 - Dalton Prejean
  30. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #161 - Johnny Garrett
  31. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #207 - Curtis Harris
  32. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #209 - Frederick Lashley
  33. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #214 - Ruben Cantu
  34. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #224 - Christopher Burger
  35. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #455 - Joseph Cannon
  36. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #460 - Robert A. Carter
  37. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #485 - Dwayne Allen Wright
  38. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #512 - Sean Richard Sellers
  39. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #601 - Douglas Christopher Thomas
  40. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #604 - Steve Edward Roach
  41. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #609 - Glen Charles McGinnis
  42. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #648 - Gary Lee Graham
  43. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #737 - Gerald Lee Mitchell
  44. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #779 - Napoleon Beazley Archived February 8, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
  45. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #789 - T. J. Jones
  46. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #795 - Toronto Markkey Patterson
  47. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #843 - Scott Allen Hain
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