Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States - wikipedia Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States Capital punishment for juveniles in the United States existed until March 1, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court banned it in Roper v. Simmons. Contents 1 Pre-Furman history 2 Post-Furman history 3 List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States since 1976 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Pre-furman history Since 1642, in the Thirteen Colonies, the United States under the Articles of Confederation, and the United States under the Constitution, an estimated 364 juvenile offenders have been put to death by the individual states ( colonies, before 1776 ) and the federal government. The youngest person to be executed in the 20th century was George Stinney, electrocuted in South Carolina at the age of 14 on June 16, 1944. The second youngest person to be executed in the 20th century was Fortune Ferguson in 1927 for rape in Florida. The youngest person ever to be sentenced to death in the United States was James Arcene, a Native American, 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 was convicted murderer Leonard Shockley, who died in the Maryland gas chamber 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. Post-furman history Further information : Furman v. Georgia 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 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. 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 was actually under the age of 18 at the time of execution. In Thompson v. Oklahoma ( 1988 ), the U.S. 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 to `` replace judges of the law with a committee of philosopher - kings ''. 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 to 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 allow 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 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. In some ways the debate over the death penalty for juveniles is a curious one. Many have pointed out that historically, few juveniles have ever been executed for their crimes. Even when there have been juveniles sentenced to death, few if any executions have actually been carried out. The United States for example, youths under the age of 18 were executed at a rate of 20 to 27 per decade, or about 1.6 to 2.3 percent of all executions from 1880s to the 1920s. This has dropped significantly when only 3 juveniles were executed between January 1977 and November 1986. List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States since 1976 Number Date Name Age ( at Offense ) Age ( at Execution ) Sex State Method Source September 11, 1985 Charles Francis Rumbaugh 17 28 Texas Lethal injection January 10, 1986 James Terry Roach 25 South Carolina Electrocution May 15, 1986 Jay Kelly Pinkerton 24 Texas Lethal injection May 18, 1990 Dalton Prejean 30 Louisiana Electrocution 5 February 11, 1992 Johnny Frank Garrett 28 Texas Lethal injection 6 July 1, 1993 Curtis Paul Harris 31 7 July 28, 1993 Frederick Lashley 29 Missouri 8 August 24, 1993 Ruben Montoya Cantu 26 Texas 9 December 7, 1993 Christopher Burger 33 Georgia Electrocution 10 April 24, 1998 Joseph John Cannon 38 Texas Lethal injection 11 May 18, 1998 Robert Anthony Carter 34 12 October 14, 1998 Dwayne Allen Wright 24 Virginia 13 February 5, 1999 Sean Richard Sellers 16 29 Oklahoma 14 January 10, 2000 Douglas Christopher Thomas 17 26 Virginia 15 January 13, 2000 Steve Edward Roach 23 16 January 25, 2000 Glen Charles McGinnis 27 Texas 17 June 22, 2000 Gary Lee Graham 36 18 October 22, 2001 Gerald Lee Mitchell 33 19 May 28, 2002 Napoleon Beazley 25 20 August 8, 2002 T.J. Jones 21 August 28, 2002 Toronto Markkey Patterson 24 22 April 3, 2003 Scott Allen Hain 32 Oklahoma See also Capital punishment in the United States Furman v. Georgia, United States Supreme Court decision that temporarily abolished capital punishment in the U.S. Gregg v. Georgia Roper v. Simmons Stanford v. Kentucky Thompson v. Oklahoma References Jump up ^ Before the needles Archived 2007 - 06 - 25 at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ Best Web Archived 2007 - 06 - 25 at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ Juvenile News and Developments - Previous Years Jump up ^ Bartollas, C., & Miller, S.J. ( 2017 ). Juvenile justice in America. Boston : Pearson. Jump up ^ `` Stanford v. Kentucky ''. law.cornell.edu. Retrieved April 5, 2016. Jump up ^ Bartollas, C., & Miller, S.J. ( 2017 ). Juvenile justice in America. Boston : Pearson. Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 048 - Charles Rumbaugh Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 051 - James Terry Roach Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 057 - Jay Pinkerton Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 128 - Dalton Prejean Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 161 - Johnny Garrett Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 207 - Curtis Harris Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 209 - Frederick Lashley Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 214 - Ruben Cantu Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 224 - Christopher Burger Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 455 - Joseph Cannon Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 460 - Robert A. Carter Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 485 - Dwayne Allen Wright Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 512 - Sean Richard Sellers Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 601 - Douglas Christopher Thomas Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 604 - Steve Edward Roach Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 609 - Glen Charles McGinnis Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 648 - Gary Lee Graham Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 737 - Gerald Lee Mitchell Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 779 - Napoleon Beazley Archived February 8, 2004, at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 789 - T.J. Jones Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 795 - Toronto Markkey Patterson Jump up ^ The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney - The Death Penalty - # 843 - Scott Allen Hain External links Juvenilles : Death Penalty Worldwide Academic research database on the laws, practice, and statistics of capital punishment for every death penalty country in the world. Death Penalty Information Center -- Juvenile Offenders Who Were On Death Row Capital Punishment hide Capital punishment in the United States Articles Federal Government Military Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Washington, D.C. Puerto Rico American Samoa Lists of individuals executed Federal Government Military Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Michigan Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Washington Wyoming By year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Scheduled executions Other List of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on capital punishment List of death row inmates in the United States List of women on death row List of women executed since 1976 Juveniles National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capital_punishment_for_juveniles_in_the_United_States&oldid=849962979 '' Categories : Capital punishment for juveniles Capital punishment in the United States Juvenile offenders executed by the United States Lists of people executed in the United States Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Articles with hCards Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Español 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 12 July 2018, at 16 : 30 ( UTC ). 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Question: when was the last juvenile executed in the us
Answer: April 10, 1959