The Youngest American Sentenced to Death Since 1973 Was a 16-year-old From Oklahoma
This execution story was woven into the “Satanic Panic” era that loomed over the United States in the 1980s and ‘90s’
Since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1977, more than 1,500 convicted criminals have made the long walk to the execution chambers (per the Death Penalty Information Center). While this form of punishment has fallen out of favor in the last two decades, some states are still known for regularly carrying out this extreme form of retribution.
What might be shocking to some is that of these condemned prisoners, nearly two dozen were sentenced to die for crimes that they committed before they reached the age of 18. The United States Supreme Court made a landmark ruling in 2005 in the case of Roper vs. Simmons. In that decision, the nation’s high court decided in a 5–4 vote that executing a person who committed a crime while they were still a minor was a violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments.
This ruling spared the lives of more than 70 juvenile offenders, more than a third of whom were convicted in the state of Texas. But for convicted murderer Sean Sellers, this court decision came several years too late.
