List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States

This is a list of juvenile offenders executed in the United States. This list consists of those people executed

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

in the United States for crimes committed while they were juveniles

Minor (law)

In law, a minor is a person under a certain age — the age of majority — which legally demarcates childhood from adulthood; the age depends upon jurisdiction and application, but is typically 18...

(before reaching the age of majority

Age of majority

The age of majority is the threshold of adulthood as it is conceptualized in law. It is the chronological moment when minors cease to legally be considered children and assume control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thereby terminating the legal control and legal responsibilities of...

). Since the reinstatement of the death penalty

Gregg v. Georgia

Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 , reaffirmed the United States Supreme Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon...

in 1976, 22 people have been executed for crimes committed while they were under the age of 18. All of the 22 executed individuals were males. Twenty-one of them were age 17 when the crime occurred; one, Sean Sellers

Sean Sellers

Sean Richard Sellers was an American murderer, one of 22 persons in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 to be executed for a crime committed while under the age of 18. He was also the only person during this period to be executed for a crime committed under the...

(executed on February 4, 1999, in Oklahoma), was 16 years old when he murdered his mother, stepfather, and a store clerk.

Since 1642, (in the Thirteen Colonies

Thirteen Colonies

The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...

, the United States under the Articles of Confederation

Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...

, and the current United States), an estimated 364 juvenile offenders

Young offender

A young offender is a young person who has been convicted or cautioned for a criminal offence. Criminal justice systems often deal with young offenders differently from adult offenders, but different countries apply the term 'young offender' to different age groups depending on the age of criminal...

have been put to death by states

State governments of the United States

State governments in the United States are those republics formed by citizens in the jurisdiction thereof as provided by the United States Constitution; with the original 13 States forming the first Articles of Confederation, and later the aforementioned Constitution. Within the U.S...

and the federal government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

. Twenty-two of those executions occurred after 1976. Due to the slow process of appeals

United States court of appeals

The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...

since 1976, it has been highly unusual for a condemned person to actually be under the age of 18 at the time of execution. The youngest person to be executed in the 20th century was George Stinney

George Stinney

George Junius Stinney Jr. was, at age 14, the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.The question of Stinney's guilt and the judicial process leading to his execution remain controversial....

, electrocuted

Electric chair

Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

in South Carolina at the age of fourteen on June 16, 1944. The youngest person ever to be sentenced to death in the United States was James Arcene

James Arcene

James Arcene was the youngest child sentenced to death, who was subsequently executed for his crime, in the United States. Arcene, a Cherokee man, was hanged by the U.S...

, a Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

, for his role in a robbery and murder committed when he was ten years old. He was, however, 23-years-old when he was actually executed on June 18, 1885. The last execution of a juvenile may have been convicted murderer Leonard Shockley

Leonard Shockley

Leonard Melvin Shockley was a juvenile executed in the United States for a murder committed when he was under the age of 18. Shockley, a black male, was executed in Maryland in the gas chamber for the murder of on January 16, 1958 when he was 16. Shockley was convicted of murdering a white woman...

, who died in the Maryland gas chamber

Gas chamber

A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...

on April 10, 1959, at the age of 17. No one has been under the age of 19 at the time of execution since at least 1964.

After the Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

's 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons, was a decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18. The 5-4 decision overruled the Court's prior ruling upholding such sentences on offenders above or at the...

, , the minimum age at time of crime to be subject to the death penalty is 18, thereby ending execution as a punishment for juvenile offenders. At the time of the Roper v. Simmons decision, there were 71 juvenile offenders 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. Detailed summaries of each of these offenders can be found here.

List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States since 1976

Number	Age at execution	Age at offense	Race	Gender	State	Method
1	28	17	White	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection Lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
2	25	17	White	Male	South Carolina	Electrocution Electric chair Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...
3	24	17	White	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
4	30	17	Black	Male	Louisiana	Electrocution
5	28	17	White	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
6	31	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
7	29	17	Black	Male	Missouri	Lethal injection
8	26	17	Latino	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
9	33	17	White	Male	Georgia	Electrocution
10	38	17	White	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
11	34	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
12	24	17	Black	Male	Virginia Capital punishment in Virginia Capital punishment is legal in the U.S. State of Virginia. In what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia, the first execution in the future United States was carried out in 1608. It was the first of 1,384 executions, the highest total of any state in the Union...	Lethal injection
13	29	16	White	Male	Oklahoma	Lethal injection
14	26	17	White	Male	Virginia Capital punishment in Virginia Capital punishment is legal in the U.S. State of Virginia. In what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia, the first execution in the future United States was carried out in 1608. It was the first of 1,384 executions, the highest total of any state in the Union...	Lethal injection
15	23	17	White	Male	Virginia Capital punishment in Virginia Capital punishment is legal in the U.S. State of Virginia. In what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia, the first execution in the future United States was carried out in 1608. It was the first of 1,384 executions, the highest total of any state in the Union...	Lethal injection
16	27	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
17	36	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
18	33	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
19	25	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
20	25	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
21	24	17	Black	Male	Texas Capital punishment in Texas Capital punishment has been used in the U.S. state of Texas and its predecessor entities since 1819.As of 16 November 2011, 1,228 individuals have been executed. Only Virginia has executed more individuals overall; however, since the death penalty was re-instituted in the United States in the...	Lethal injection
22	32	17	White	Male	Oklahoma	Lethal injection

List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States since 1976

See also