Trends in Capital Punishment for Youth 18 to 20 Years Old

In April 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) released Immature Minds in a ​“Maturing Society”: Roper v. Simmons at 20, which found that “[a] mean­ing­ful exam­i­na­tion of all the evi­dence sug­gests that 18‑, 19- and 20-year-olds are equal­ly deserv­ing as those under 18 to be exclud­ed from death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty.” Included in the report was an analy­sis of trends in sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tions of defen­dants age 18 to 20 based on twen­ty years of data, from the time of the Roper deci­sion on March 1, 2005, through the end of 2024. DPI has now incor­po­rat­ed data from 2025 into that analy­sis and updat­ed a num­ber of key data-relat­ed find­ings from the report. 

New death sen­tences for indi­vid­u­als in this age group in 2025 declined both in num­ber and as a pro­por­tion of total death sen­tences, con­tin­u­ing a twen­ty-year down­ward trend. Executions of indi­vid­u­als aged 18 to 20 at the time of crime also con­tin­ue to be on an unbro­ken down­ward tra­jec­to­ry since 2005. Both new sen­tences and exe­cu­tions remain geographically concentrated. 

Death Sentencing of 18‑, 19- and 20-Year Olds 

Consistent with Immature Minds, in 2025, new death sen­tences for indi­vid­u­als aged 18, 19, and 20 at the time of the offense con­tin­ued to decline both in num­ber and as a per­cent­age of all new death sen­tences over the pre­vi­ous year. Of the 23 indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death in 2025, only one was in this age group, down from two in 2024. Over the past five years (2021 – 2025), juries have sen­tenced five (5) 18‑, 19‑, and 20-year-olds to death, account­ing for 4.6 per­cent of new death sen­tences (5/​109). By com­par­i­son, in 2008, juries sen­tenced twen­ty indi­vid­u­als in this age group to death, a post-Roper high. 

Death sen­tences for young peo­ple are also geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed. In 2025, Florida was the only state to impose a death sen­tence on a per­son 18, 19, or 20 at the time of the crime, Donovan Faison. Donovon was sen­tenced to death by a non-unan­i­mous (11 – 1) jury for the 2022 mur­der of his preg­nant girl­friend, Kailyn Fiengo. He was twen­ty at the time of the crime. Since 2020, just four states (Alabama, Arizona, California, and Florida) imposed new death sen­tences for indi­vid­u­als in this age group. This con­tin­ues the trend in geo­graph­ic con­cen­tra­tion first not­ed in Immature Minds: from 2005 to 2009, twen­ty-one states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment imposed sen­tences on young peo­ple; from 2010 to 2014, the num­ber dropped to four­teen states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment; and from 2015 to 2019, ten states imposed death sen­tences on peo­ple in this age group. As of 2025, 64 per­cent (58/​91) of indi­vid­u­als in this age group cur­rent­ly fac­ing death sen­tences are locat­ed in just four states: California (25), Florida (12), Alabama (12), and Texas (9). 

2025 Executions of Individuals Age 18, 19 or 20 at the Time of the Crime 

72% (13/​18) of exe­cu­tions over the past five years (2021 to 2025) of indi­vid­u­als age 18 to 20 at the time of their crime took place in three states: Texas (6/​18), Oklahoma (4/​18) and Alabama (3/​18). 49% (63/​129) of all exe­cu­tions since 2005 of young peo­ple in this cohort have tak­en place in Texas. 

Three of 47 indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed in 2025 (6%) were 18 to 20 years old at the time of the crime, down from five indi­vid­u­als in 2024. Jessie Hoffman, who was 18 at the time of his offense, was exe­cut­ed in Louisiana. Blaine Milam, who was 18, and Moises Mendoza, who was 20, were both exe­cut­ed in Texas. 50 of the 63 young peo­ple in this age group who were exe­cut­ed in Texas were peo­ple of color. 

Jessie Hoffman in Profile 

Jessie Hoffman’s exe­cu­tion marked both Louisiana’s first exe­cu­tion in 15 years and the state’s first exe­cu­tion using nitro­gen gas — only the sec­ond state to use this new method. He was 18 at the time of the offense. Had he been just three months younger, he would not have been eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty, based on the Supreme Court’s recog­ni­tion in Roper that juve­niles are less cul­pa­ble for cap­i­tal crimes because their brains have not fully developed. 

In court fil­ings, his attor­neys described how Jessie’s child­hood was char­ac­ter­ized by ​“sex­u­al, phys­i­cal, and ver­bal abuse, and oth­er tor­ture and vio­lence.” They note Jessie expe­ri­enced both psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal harm at the hands of both his moth­er and his father. When he was four­teen months old, his moth­er held his hand over the fire burn­er on a stove as pun­ish­ment, result­ing in burns that led to a nine­teen-day hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. His father would ​“hog-tie” Jessie and his sib­lings for pun­ish­ment and ​“lock them in the clos­et for long peri­ods of time.” Researchers have doc­u­ment­ed the long-last­ing and dam­ag­ing effects of severe trau­ma when expe­ri­enced by young children. 

Caroline Tillman, one of Jessie’s long­time defense attor­neys, described his almost three decades in prison in a state­ment at the time of his exe­cu­tion, call­ing his trans­for­ma­tion there proof ​“that peo­ple can change.” She described Jessie’s ​“deep remorse,” and his deter­mi­na­tion ​“to make amends how­ev­er he could.” She remind­ed that he ​“built a fam­i­ly inside those walls — not just with the men who served time along­side him, but with the offi­cers and staff who came to know him over decades[,]” and was a ​“a steady source of strength, offer­ing guid­ance and com­fort to those around him.” 

Jessie Hoffman was exe­cut­ed on March 18, 2025.