Although the U.S. Supreme Court has deemed executing offenders under 18 as cruel and unusual, the history of American children sentenced to death is a dark and fascinating chapter of our legal past.
American Children and the Death Penalty: A Grim Overview
10 Virginia Christian
On the bright morning of August 16, 1912, sixteen‑year‑old Virginia Christian was led to the electric chair for the murder of her employer, Ida Belote, after being accused of stealing a gold locket. Christian became the first and only woman ever executed in Virginia.
The case unfolded amid Jim Crow laws and racial purity statutes that painted African Americans as subhuman. Newspapers dubbed Christian “The Negress,” reflecting the era’s virulent anti‑black sentiment.
Although she confessed, Christian was denied a fair trial. Virginia law barred imprisonment or execution of offenders 17 or younger, yet no such exemption existed for Black defendants. She was not permitted to testify, as authorities feared another courtroom massacre like the Hillsville shoot‑out.
The trial was rushed to avoid mob violence, and Christian was executed a day after her 17th birthday.
9 Plymouth Colony1642
In 1642, the Plymouth Colony witnessed a grotesque case of sexual misconduct when Thomas Graunger, a Native American teenager of about 16 or 17, was convicted of “buggery.” The crime? Bestiality with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey.
Graunger was caught after an unsuspecting passerby walked in on him in the act with the mare. He openly confessed to “romantic escapades” with all twelve animals.
Sentenced to hang, Graunger’s execution on September 8, 1642, featured a grisly spectacle: the mare, then the cow, followed by the lesser cattle were slain before his eyes, in accordance with Leviticus xx. 15. The carcasses were buried in a mass grave before the crowd, after which Graunger was taken to the gallows and hanged.
8 A History Of Violence
On July 2, 1977, Louisiana State Trooper Donald Cleveland stopped 17‑year‑old Dalton Prejean and his brother Joseph. While the officer tried to frisk Joseph, Dalton slipped behind the trooper and shot him twice in the head.
At trial, Dalton’s remorse earned him a wave of supporters who argued that the all‑white jury denied him a fair trial and highlighted his partial brain damage from years of abuse.
Dalton’s violent streak began early; he had already murdered a taxi driver at 14. For that first killing, he received only 30 months in a reform school. The second murder landed him on Louisiana’s electric chair, where he was executed in 1990.
7 Colonial Albany1793
Just after midnight on November 17, 1793, a fire ripped through Senator Leonard Gansevoort’s mansion in colonial Albany, New York, destroying numerous blocks and 26 homes, causing $250,000 in damages.
In the tense climate following the Haitian Revolution and local uprisings, a teenage slave nicknamed “Pomp” (Pompey) was accused of intentionally igniting the blaze. According to newspaper accounts, two white men with a grudge against Gansevoort offered Pomp a watch for setting the fire.
Pomp enlisted two slave girls, Dinah and Bet, both under 14, to assist. While the girls pleaded guilty, Pomp maintained his innocence. All three were convicted and sentenced to death.
Governor DeWitt Clinton sought clemency, but to no avail. The trio was hanged in early 1794 before a drunken crowd; the two white men who allegedly hired Pomp were never identified.
6 Burned Alive
When 17‑year‑old Scott Hain teamed up with 21‑year‑old Robert Wayne Lambert, they kidnapped Michael Houghton and Laura Sanders outside a Tulsa bar, robbed them of $565, and then forced the victims into a car trunk where they were burned alive.
Hours later, Hain and Lambert returned to the scene to watch the charred remains, a macabre act that earned them death sentences.
The case attracted international scrutiny because Hain was a minor. Sixteen years later, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final stay, Hain was executed. He maintained his innocence, claiming he acted under Lambert’s influence. Lambert remains on death row, arguing for vacating his sentence based on the Supreme Court’s ban on executing the mentally retarded.
5 Leonard Shockley
On January 16, 1958, 16‑year‑old Leonard Shockley and his 22‑year‑old brother Harold robbed a Boxiron, Maryland general store owned by 39‑year‑old Sarah Hearne, assuming she would be alone.
Inside the store, Leonard brutally attacked Hearne, stabbing her repeatedly with a large hunting knife before slashing her throat. A customer, Clarence Bishop, arrived moments later, fled in horror, and later helped identify the Shockley brothers.
Harold received a life sentence, but Leonard was sentenced to the Maryland gas chamber, where he was executed on April 10, 1959. It would be four decades before another inmate was put to death for a crime committed at age 16.
4 Sean Sellers
Forty years after Shockley’s execution, 16‑year‑old Sean Sellers was put to death for multiple murders. A former Satan worshipper who once drank his own blood, Sellers killed a convenience‑store clerk “just to see what it felt like.”
Six months later, he shot his sleeping parents while dressed only in black underwear. The case sparked an international outcry; journalists from Europe swarmed Oklahoma, and figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu pleaded for clemency.
Despite a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, the governor ordered execution. Sellers’ last meal was Chinese food, and he was lethal‑injected on February 4, 1999, after converting to Christianity.
3 James Terry Roach
In October 1977, 17‑year‑old James Terry Roach and 22‑year‑old Joseph Carl Shaw were convicted of first‑degree murder after a high‑school car ambush that left Tommy Taylor shot in the face and Carlotta Hartness raped, shot, and mutilated.
Roach’s defense highlighted his youth and his battle with Huntington’s chorea, a debilitating genetic disease. Even former President Jimmy Carter and Mother Teresa appealed for mercy.
Governor Richard W. Riley rejected the pleas, and Roach endured two electric shocks in January 1986. Shaw had been executed the year before.
2 The Prison Gallows
On June 14, 1915, 13‑year‑old Joe Persons of Butts County, Georgia, raped and murdered an eight‑year‑old girl, prompting a public outcry so fierce that even the boy’s father petitioned for his son to be hanged.
Authorities escorted Persons to the prison courtyard, where newspaper reports noted his “immature and underdeveloped” 29‑kilogram frame. Officials even debated adding weights to ensure a swift execution.
The exact details remain murky, but the young boy paid with his life that ominous autumn day.
1 Year-Old Murderer
On November 25, 1872, Swedish immigrant William Feigel vanished near Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. His body was found the next day, stripped of clothing and money.
In 1884, Deputy Marshal Andrews reopened the cold case, leading to the arrests of 10‑year‑old Native American James Arcene and his adult accomplice William Parchmeal.
Arcene confessed to shooting and bludgeoning Feigel after being recruited by Parchmeal, who masterminded the robbery for a meager 25 cents. Both were sentenced to hang on June 26, 1885.
Although Arcene was executed as an adult at Fort Smith, he remains the youngest person ever sentenced to death in the United States.