The Young Ones: Every Person 35 Or Under On Texas Death Row

How do things go so wrong for some who are so young?

Imagine spending your 30s, 20s, or even part of your teens on death row. We all make mistakes, even very serious ones, when we are young. But very few of us end up on the Row.

There are currently seven men and one woman 35 or under waiting on their turn for the needle. Clearly, they made extremely poor decisions quite early on.

Most of these younger people have something in common: they are cops or correctional officer killers.

Law enforcement is a special class in Texas law- killing a member of the police, sheriff, etc. is a capital crime and can be prosecuted as such.

Others killed their victims while committing another felony- another capital crime in Texas. Killing during a robbery or a sexual assault is dealt with severely in the Lone Star State.

The solitary woman in this group killed her "friend" to kidnap an unborn child, a particularly heinous crime that resulted in the baby's death. She is one of only a handful of women on Texas death row, you can read about the others here.

Despite Texas' reputation, death penalty cases are quite rare. They are much more expensive to prosecute, and always trigger an automatic appeal. A prosecutor will not usually pursue the death penalty unless they are confident they can win- and that the crime is serious enough to sway a jury to vote for death.

Here is a look at the crimes that landed these people on death row. Given that the average stay on death row is a little over 11 years, some of these people might not see middle age.