The youngest person ever executed on death row in the United States during the 20th century was George Stinney Jr., a 14-year-old Black boy from Alcolu, South Carolina, who was put to death by electric chair on June 16, 1944, roughly three months after his arrest. The youngest person at the time of their offense ever executed in American history was just ten years old. None of this can happen today: in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that the Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty for anyone whose crime occurred before their 18th birthday.
Who Was George Stinney Jr.
In the spring of 1944, two young white girls, Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames, went missing in the small, racially segregated town of Alcolu, South Carolina. Their bodies were found the next morning in a ditch. Stinney, who had been seen near the girls with his younger sister, was arrested and charged with capital murder and rape.
Deputy sheriffs questioned the 14-year-old for hours without his parents or a lawyer present and later claimed he confessed. No written confession was ever produced. At roughly 90 pounds, Stinney was so small that officials reportedly made him sit on a book to be strapped into the electric chair.1Equal Justice Initiative. The George Stinney Tragedy
The trial lasted about two hours. His court-appointed lawyer called no defense witnesses and mounted essentially no defense. The all-white jury, in a county that was nearly three-quarters Black, deliberated for ten minutes before returning a guilty verdict and a death sentence. No appeal was filed. Eighty-one days after his arrest, Stinney was executed.1Equal Justice Initiative. The George Stinney Tragedy
The Conviction Was Vacated in 2014
Seventy years later, attorneys and members of the Stinney family petitioned to reopen the case. In December 2014, Circuit Court Judge Carmen T. Mullen vacated Stinney’s conviction. The court found that Stinney had been “fundamentally deprived of due process throughout the proceedings against him,” that his alleged confession could not be considered knowing or voluntary, and that his court-appointed attorney’s representation was “the essence of being ineffective.” Judge Mullen concluded, “I can think of no greater injustice.”2Death Penalty Information Center. Remembering the Execution of 14-year-old George Stinney, 80 Years Later
The ruling vacated the conviction on procedural due process grounds, meaning the court found the trial itself was constitutionally defective. That is not quite the same as a declaration of innocence, but the practical effect acknowledged that Stinney never received anything resembling a fair trial.
How Common Were Juvenile Executions
Stinney’s case is the one most people remember, but he was far from alone. The first documented execution of a juvenile offender in what became the United States happened in 1642, when Thomas Granger, age 16, was hanged in Plymouth Colony. Between that date and the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision ending the practice, 365 people confirmed to have been juveniles at the time of their crimes were executed in this country.3Death Penalty Information Center. Executions of Juveniles in the U.S. 1976-2005
The racial pattern was severe. From 1642 to 1964, roughly two-thirds of all children executed were Black. The South accounted for about 62 percent of juvenile executions during that span.
Even after the Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty statutes in 1972 and states rewrote their capital punishment laws in the mid-1970s, juvenile executions did not stop. Twenty-two people who committed their crimes before turning 18 were executed between 1976 and 2005.3Death Penalty Information Center. Executions of Juveniles in the U.S. 1976-2005
How the Supreme Court Ended Juvenile Executions
The ban did not arrive all at once. The constitutional line moved in stages, with each decision narrowing the group of young people who could face execution.
Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988)
William Wayne Thompson was 15 when he participated in a murder in Oklahoma. He was tried as an adult, convicted, and sentenced to death. In a plurality opinion, four justices concluded that executing someone who was under 16 at the time of the crime violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Justice O’Connor concurred in the judgment on narrower grounds, providing the fifth vote. The practical effect was clear: no state could execute a person whose crime occurred before their 16th birthday.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988)
Stanford v. Kentucky (1989)
A year later, the Court took up the question of older juveniles. In Stanford v. Kentucky, a majority upheld death sentences for offenders who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes, finding no national consensus against the practice. For the next 16 years, capital punishment remained a legal possibility for 16- and 17-year-olds in states that allowed it.5Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989)
Roper v. Simmons (2005)
The decisive break came in Roper v. Simmons. Christopher Simmons was 17 when he planned and committed a murder in Missouri. After he turned 18, he was sentenced to death. The Missouri Supreme Court set aside the sentence, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in a 5–4 decision that permanently banned the death penalty for all crimes committed by anyone under 18.6U.S. Reports. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)
The Court’s reasoning rested on three differences between juveniles and adults: young people lack maturity and have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility; they are more vulnerable to outside pressures, including peer influence; and their character is still forming, which means they have greater potential for change. The Court also noted that the United States was virtually alone among nations in permitting juvenile executions, and that a growing domestic consensus had turned against the practice since Stanford. The opinion explicitly overruled Stanford v. Kentucky.6U.S. Reports. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)
What Is the Harshest Sentence a Juvenile Can Receive Today
No person can be sentenced to death in any U.S. jurisdiction for an offense committed before their 18th birthday. That rule flows directly from Roper v. Simmons and has the force of constitutional law, meaning no state legislature can override it.
The maximum penalty a juvenile offender can face today is life in prison without the possibility of parole. In Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Court held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile homicide offenders violate the Eighth Amendment; a sentencing judge must have discretion to consider the offender’s youth and individual circumstances before imposing that sentence.7Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) In Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), the Court made that rule retroactive, affecting roughly 2,000 people already serving mandatory juvenile life-without-parole sentences.8Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016) More recently, in Jones v. Mississippi (2021), the Court clarified that a sentencing judge need not make a separate finding that a juvenile is “permanently incorrigible” before imposing life without parole, so long as the sentence is discretionary rather than mandatory.9Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. ___ (2021)
Several states have gone further and banned juvenile life without parole entirely, though the federal Constitution does not require them to do so. The death penalty for juveniles is gone permanently. The question of how much incarceration is too much for a crime committed by a child is still being worked out.