The youngest criminals sentenced to death. Executions of children and adolescents from 10 to 17 years

© Max Klim, 2017

ISBN 978-5-4490-1630-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

What could such a terrible young criminals do that they were sentenced to such severe punishment? It’s not always a murder. It is good that in many countries there are moratoria on such executions and similar occurrences are less and less common.

15 sad stories from all about juvenile offenders sentenced to death. There are girls.

The death penalty is a terrible and incorrigible punishment, for serious crimes. Punishment is terrible and irreparable. In many countries, including Russia, a moratorium has been imposed on such measures. But the United States of America continues to practice executions. In the early eighties in Texas, for this purpose, the first lethal injection was introduced.

Now the cases of such punishments have decreased, the judicial machine is leaning towards more humane methods under the pressure of the public, but a few hundred years ago many of the accused would not have died. Including children. The history knows about a thousand court cases, where the verdict was pronounced in favor of the death penalty, and the sentenced turned out to be a minor. As in cases with adult criminals, sometimes their guilt was undeniably proven, but sometimes a whole series of questions remained to the investigation.

Some of these heartbreaking cases are given below.

George Stinney – an African American who was at the wrong time in the wrong place

A fourteen-year-old black boy was seen in the company of two white girls. Children just picked flowers. But soon the bodies of the murdered girls were found with traces of beatings inflicted with metal objects.

George was detained by the police. Parents vainly tried to see him – it was forbidden. During the interrogations, pressure was exerted – as a result, the boy pleaded guilty. The jury ruled on the death penalty within a matter of ten minutes. By the way, there was not one African American among the jury.

The George family sought a review of the decision, but the appeal was rejected. Stinny finished his life in an electric chair. He was a child of short stature and a story is well known about the fact that he had to put a book under him to bring the sentence to execution.