What does it say about a society when it condemns children to death? History holds disturbing accounts of boys and girls—some barely teenagers—sentenced to die by the very systems meant to protect them.

While their peers played or studied, these children faced judges, trials, and the noose. Many had no lawyers, no real defense, and often no understanding of the charges against them. Some were executed within days, their fate decided before they could grasp what was happening.

These stories are not just relics of the past—they remind us how easily justice can lose its humanity. When the law stops seeing a child as a child, innocence is erased, and punishment replaces compassion.

The youngest victims of capital punishment leave behind a stark lesson: justice without mercy is no justice at all.