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Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States

April 10, 2024

Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States 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 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 342 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.

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, although due to lengthy appeals processes, none of them were still juveniles by the time of their executions.

History edit

Pre-Furman edit

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, 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 boy executed by hanging in Georgia on September 24, 1915 for the rape of an 8-year-old girl that he committed in June 1915. Persons reportedly confessed to the crime while he was on the gallows. Persons' age has not been confirmed; while he was reportedly 13 at the time of the crime's commission, he was variously reported to have been 12, 13, 14, 15, or "not older than 14" at the time of his execution. He weighed only 65 pounds, leading contemporary death penalty researcher M. Watt Espy to posit that Persons was likely closer to 12 than he was to 15.[4][5][6][7]

The second youngest person to be executed, and the youngest to have a confirmed birth date (of October 21, 1929), was George Stinney, who was electrocuted in South Carolina at the age of 14 on June 16, 1944, after the bodies of two children (ages 7 and 11) were found close to his home. George Stinney maintained his innocence throughout his trial and subsequent execution. The verdict of this case was overturned posthumously.

The third youngest person to be executed in the 20th century was Fortune Ferguson in 1927 for rape in Florida; he allegedly committed the crime when he was 13 years old.[8]

James Arcene, a Native American, was 10 years old when he was involved in a robbery and murder in Arkansas. He was, however, 23 years old when he was actually executed on June 18, 1885.[9]

The last judicially-approved execution of a juvenile was convicted murderer Leonard Shockley, who died in a Maryland gas chamber on April 10, 1959, at the age of 17. Nobody has been under the age of 19 at the time of execution since at least 1964.[10][11]

The peak decade for juvenile executions was the 1940s, when 53 people who were under 18 at the times of their crimes were put to death.[8]

Post-Furman edit

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

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976[12] when the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty 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 (executed on February 4, 1999, in Oklahoma), was 16 years old when he murdered his mother, stepfather, and a store clerk. Due to the slow process of appeals since 1976, none were actually under the age of 18 at the time of execution. The youngest at the time of execution was Steve Edward Roach, who was 23 at the time of execution.

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".[13] 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 juveniles awaiting execution 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.[14]

Few juveniles have ever been executed for their crimes. Even when juveniles were sentenced to death, few executions were actually carried out. In the United States for example, 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. This has dropped significantly when only 3 juveniles were executed between January 1977 and November 1986.[12]

List of juveniles executed in the United States since 1976 edit

All juveniles executed since 1976 were male.

No. Date Name Age State Method Ref.
At offense At execution
1 September 11, 1985 Charles Francis Rumbaugh 17 28 Texas Lethal injection [15]
2 January 10, 1986 James Terry Roach 25 South Carolina Electrocution [16]
3 May 15, 1986 Jay Kelly Pinkerton 24 Texas Lethal injection [17]
4 May 18, 1990 Dalton Prejean 30 Louisiana Electrocution [18]
5 February 11, 1992 Johnny Frank Garrett 28 Texas Lethal injection [19]
6 July 1, 1993 Curtis Paul Harris 31 [20]
7 July 28, 1993 Frederick Lashley 29 Missouri [21]
8 August 24, 1993 Ruben Montoya Cantu 26 Texas [22]
9 December 7, 1993 Christopher Burger 33 Georgia Electrocution [23]
10 April 24, 1998 Joseph John Cannon 38 Texas Lethal injection [24]
11 May 18, 1998 Robert Anthony Carter 34 [25]
12 October 14, 1998 Dwayne Allen Wright 26 Virginia [26]
13 February 4, 1999 Sean Richard Sellers 16 29 Oklahoma [27]
14 January 10, 2000 Douglas Christopher Thomas 17 26 Virginia [28]
15 January 13, 2000 Steve Edward Roach 23 [29]
16 January 25, 2000 Glen Charles McGinnis 27 Texas [30]
17 June 22, 2000 Gary Lee Graham 36 [31]
18 October 22, 2001 Gerald Lee Mitchell 33 [32]
19 May 28, 2002 Napoleon Beazley 25 [33]
20 August 8, 2002 T. J. Jones [34]
21 August 28, 2002 Toronto Markkey Patterson 24 [35]
22 April 3, 2003 Scott Allen Hain 32 Oklahoma [36]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v. Simmons". Death Penalty Information Center.
  2. ^
  3. ^ Records of the Colony of New Plymouth
  4. ^ Hearn, Daniel Allen (22 December 2015). Legal Executions in Georgia: A Comprehensive Registry, 1866-1964. McFarland. ISBN 9781476620008.
  5. ^ "Hang 13-Year-Old Boy in Georgia". Evening Public Ledger. 1915-09-24. p. 1. from the original on 2023-07-14. Retrieved 2023-07-14. Joe Persons, a 13-year-old negro boy, was executed in Jackson, Ga., today.
  6. ^ . Hopkinsville Kentuckian. 1915-09-30. p. 1. Archived from the original on 2023-07-14. Retrieved 2023-07-14. 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)
  7. ^ Espy, M. Watt (1986-01-07). "Death for Juvenile Crimes: Execution, a Practice Dating to 1642, May Continue This Week". Los Angeles Times. from the original on 2023-07-14. Retrieved 2023-07-14. 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.
  8. ^ a b "History of the Juvenile Death Penalty". The Washington Post. 1988-07-19. from the original on 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  9. ^ Before the needles 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Best Web 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ . Archived from the original on 2007-12-15. Retrieved 2007-11-20.
  12. ^ a b Bartollas, C., & Miller, S. J. (2017). Juvenile justice in America. Boston: Pearson.
  13. ^ "Stanford v. Kentucky". law.cornell.edu. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  14. ^ For detailed summaries of each of these juveniles, see "The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v. Simmons". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  15. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #048 - Charles Rumbaugh
  16. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #051 - James Terry Roach
  17. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #057 - Jay Pinkerton
  18. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #128 - Dalton Prejean
  19. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #161 - Johnny Garrett
  20. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #207 - Curtis Harris
  21. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #209 - Frederick Lashley
  22. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #214 - Ruben Cantu
  23. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #224 - Christopher Burger
  24. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #455 - Joseph Cannon
  25. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #460 - Robert A. Carter
  26. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #485 - Dwayne Allen Wright
  27. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #512 - Sean Richard Sellers
  28. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #601 - Douglas Christopher Thomas
  29. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #604 - Steve Edward Roach
  30. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #609 - Glen Charles McGinnis
  31. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #648 - Gary Lee Graham
  32. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #737 - Gerald Lee Mitchell
  33. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #779 - Napoleon Beazley February 8, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
  34. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #789 - T. J. Jones
  35. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #795 - Toronto Markkey Patterson
  36. ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - #843 - Scott Allen Hain

External links edit

  • Juveniles: Death Penalty Worldwide 2014-03-09 at the Wayback Machine Academic research database on the laws, practice, and statistics of capital punishment for every death penalty country in the world.
  • Death Penalty Information Center – The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v. Simmons
  • Capital Punishment

April 10, 2024
capital, punishment, juveniles, united, states, this, article, lead, section, short, adequately, summarize, points, please, consider, expanding, lead, provide, accessible, overview, important, aspects, article, september, 2019, existed, until, march, 2005, whe. This article s lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article September 2019 Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States 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 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 342 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 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 although due to lengthy appeals processes none of them were still juveniles by the time of their executions Contents 1 History 1 1 Pre Furman 1 2 Post Furman 2 List of juveniles executed in the United States since 1976 3 See also 4 References 5 External linksHistory editPre Furman edit 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 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 boy executed by hanging in Georgia on September 24 1915 for the rape of an 8 year old girl that he committed in June 1915 Persons reportedly confessed to the crime while he was on the gallows Persons age has not been confirmed while he was reportedly 13 at the time of the crime s commission he was variously reported to have been 12 13 14 15 or not older than 14 at the time of his execution He weighed only 65 pounds leading contemporary death penalty researcher M Watt Espy to posit that Persons was likely closer to 12 than he was to 15 4 5 6 7 The second youngest person to be executed and the youngest to have a confirmed birth date of October 21 1929 was George Stinney who was electrocuted in South Carolina at the age of 14 on June 16 1944 after the bodies of two children ages 7 and 11 were found close to his home George Stinney maintained his innocence throughout his trial and subsequent execution The verdict of this case was overturned posthumously The third youngest person to be executed in the 20th century was Fortune Ferguson in 1927 for rape in Florida he allegedly committed the crime when he was 13 years old 8 James Arcene a Native American was 10 years old when he was involved in a robbery and murder in Arkansas He was however 23 years old when he was actually executed on June 18 1885 9 The last judicially approved execution of a juvenile was convicted murderer Leonard Shockley who died in a Maryland gas chamber on April 10 1959 at the age of 17 Nobody has been under the age of 19 at the time of execution since at least 1964 10 11 The peak decade for juvenile executions was the 1940s when 53 people who were under 18 at the times of their crimes were put to death 8 Post Furman edit nbsp Pre Roper minimum ages for executions by state No capital punishment Minimum age of 18 Minimum age of 17 Minimum age of 16Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 12 when the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty 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 executed on February 4 1999 in Oklahoma was 16 years old when he murdered his mother stepfather and a store clerk Due to the slow process of appeals since 1976 none were actually under the age of 18 at the time of execution The youngest at the time of execution was Steve Edward Roach who was 23 at the time of execution 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 13 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 juveniles awaiting execution 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 14 Few juveniles have ever been executed for their crimes Even when juveniles were sentenced to death few executions were actually carried out In the United States for example 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 This has dropped significantly when only 3 juveniles were executed between January 1977 and November 1986 12 List of juveniles executed in the United States since 1976 editAll juveniles executed since 1976 were male No Date Name Age State Method Ref At offense At execution1 September 11 1985 Charles Francis Rumbaugh 17 28 Texas Lethal injection 15 2 January 10 1986 James Terry Roach 25 South Carolina Electrocution 16 3 May 15 1986 Jay Kelly Pinkerton 24 Texas Lethal injection 17 4 May 18 1990 Dalton Prejean 30 Louisiana Electrocution 18 5 February 11 1992 Johnny Frank Garrett 28 Texas Lethal injection 19 6 July 1 1993 Curtis Paul Harris 31 20 7 July 28 1993 Frederick Lashley 29 Missouri 21 8 August 24 1993 Ruben Montoya Cantu 26 Texas 22 9 December 7 1993 Christopher Burger 33 Georgia Electrocution 23 10 April 24 1998 Joseph John Cannon 38 Texas Lethal injection 24 11 May 18 1998 Robert Anthony Carter 34 25 12 October 14 1998 Dwayne Allen Wright 26 Virginia 26 13 February 4 1999 Sean Richard Sellers 16 29 Oklahoma 27 14 January 10 2000 Douglas Christopher Thomas 17 26 Virginia 28 15 January 13 2000 Steve Edward Roach 23 29 16 January 25 2000 Glen Charles McGinnis 27 Texas 30 17 June 22 2000 Gary Lee Graham 36 31 18 October 22 2001 Gerald Lee Mitchell 33 32 19 May 28 2002 Napoleon Beazley 25 33 20 August 8 2002 T J Jones 34 21 August 28 2002 Toronto Markkey Patterson 24 35 22 April 3 2003 Scott Allen Hain 32 Oklahoma 36 See also editCapital punishment in the United StatesReferences edit The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v Simmons Death Penalty Information Center Mayflower Families Morality and Sex Records of the Colony of New Plymouth Hearn Daniel Allen 22 December 2015 Legal Executions in Georgia A Comprehensive Registry 1866 1964 McFarland ISBN 9781476620008 Hang 13 Year Old Boy in Georgia Evening Public Ledger 1915 09 24 p 1 Archived from the original on 2023 07 14 Retrieved 2023 07 14 Joe Persons a 13 year old negro boy was executed in Jackson Ga today Small Boy Hanged Hopkinsville Kentuckian 1915 09 30 p 1 Archived from the original on 2023 07 14 Retrieved 2023 07 14 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 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Espy M Watt 1986 01 07 Death for Juvenile Crimes Execution a Practice Dating to 1642 May Continue This Week Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on 2023 07 14 Retrieved 2023 07 14 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 a b History of the Juvenile Death Penalty The Washington Post 1988 07 19 Archived from the original on 2020 08 11 Retrieved 2023 07 14 Before the needles Archived 2007 06 25 at the Wayback Machine Best Web Archived 2007 06 25 at the Wayback Machine Juvenile News and Developments Previous Years Archived from the original on 2007 12 15 Retrieved 2007 11 20 a b Bartollas C amp Miller S J 2017 Juvenile justice in America Boston Pearson Stanford v Kentucky law cornell edu Retrieved April 5 2016 For detailed summaries of each of these juveniles see The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v Simmons Death Penalty Information Center Retrieved 12 February 2019 The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 048 Charles Rumbaugh The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 051 James Terry Roach The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 057 Jay Pinkerton The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 128 Dalton Prejean The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 161 Johnny Garrett The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 207 Curtis Harris The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 209 Frederick Lashley The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 214 Ruben Cantu The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 224 Christopher Burger The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 455 Joseph Cannon The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 460 Robert A Carter The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 485 Dwayne Allen Wright The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 512 Sean Richard Sellers The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 601 Douglas Christopher Thomas The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 604 Steve Edward Roach The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 609 Glen Charles McGinnis The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 648 Gary Lee Graham The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 737 Gerald Lee Mitchell The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 779 Napoleon Beazley Archived February 8 2004 at the Wayback Machine The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 789 T J Jones The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 795 Toronto Markkey Patterson The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney The Death Penalty 843 Scott Allen HainExternal links editJuveniles Death Penalty Worldwide Archived 2014 03 09 at the Wayback Machine Academic research database on the laws practice and statistics of capital punishment for every death penalty country in the world Death Penalty Information Center The Juvenile Death Penalty Prior to Roper v Simmons Capital Punishment Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States amp oldid 1218247131 List of juveniles executed in the United States since 1976, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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