(continued from above) In 1988, the Supreme Court prohibited...

(continued from above) In 1988, the Supreme Court prohibited the execution of defendants who were younger than 16 at the time of their crimes. The next year, the court declined to extend that ban to execution of offenders under 18. Fifteen of the 21 states that allow the execution of juveniles have not carried out such an execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976; nine of them have no juveniles on death row. Only three states have carried out executions of juvenile offenders with any frequency in recent decades. They are Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma, with 13, three and two, which together account for more than 80 per cent of the 22 juvenile executions in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated.