# Seven year old girl hanged...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-year-old-girl-hanged/187091>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 8, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-year-old-girl-hanged/187091 "2003-07-08T21:21:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-year-old-girl-hanged/187091/21 "2003-07-10T02:16:47Z")

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> [@](#):
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> \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \*  
> \*\*I have trouble believing that. Things I’ve read that are about the 11-1200’s have mentioned people being horrified about things done to young children, including blinding and hanging. Though these particular children were hostages, it seemed to be more their youth that was objectionable, rather than their innocence, since similar things done to adult hostages didn’t earn as much scorn and horror. \*\*

Got any information you can cite on this?

People didn’t get horrified about the things we do. Death was all around them. Many of the peasants slept and had sex in the same room as their children. Many of the children were held just as accountable as the adults. Hell, girls were married and had kids at 14+ years old. They were not a sheltered and pampered culture like ours.

Look at just recently- Child Labor? The horrid conditions in factories and mines, punishment in those factories?

[http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRpunishments.htm](http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRpunishments.htm)

Sure, people started to get a conscience back in the late 18th century, but it was still forming, and then it was just that death was wrong, but damn near killing em was still ok. Or working them untill they dropped from exhastion and died from thirst and starvation. :rolleyes:

Yeah, bit step forward.

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**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-year-old-girl-hanged/187091/22 "2003-07-10T02:53:46Z")

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_Originally posted by Dr\_Paprika_

> [@](#):
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> **This hanging would be legal in the United States under current law.**

Doc Paprika, no. No-no-no-no. From the Death Penalty Information Centre:

> [@](#):
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> The constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty seems to be a reasonably well-settled issue. In Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988), the Supreme Court held that executions of offenders age fifteen and younger at the time of their crimes are unconstitutional.

So the minimum age in the United States is 16. Furthermore, Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), held that the death penalty was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime of rape of an adult woman, and thus unconstitutional under the 8th amendment. Certainly theft wouldn’t cut it, and I’m fairly certain that since Coker no U.S. jurisdiction has imposed the death sentence for any crime other than murder.

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