Stanford v. Kentucky

As of 1996, there were eight states--Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah--that had no statutes governing the minimum age for capital punishment. Fourteen states, along with the federal system, set the minimum at 18 years of age: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.

Among Southern states, Tennessee had the highest minimum age for execution. Four states (George, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Texas) authorized 17 as the minimum age, though in North Carolina a person 14 or older who was incarcerated for murder and then committed another murder could be executed.

The remaining states all had minimum ages of 16 or less. Sixteen was the minimum in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Finally, Arkansas and Virginia authorized the death penalty for persons 14 years old or older.

According to Amnesty International, five nations have executed prisoners younger than 18 years of age since 1990. Of these, the United States is the only non-Islamic country, the others being Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.