Capital punishment for homosexuality (USA)?

Hey guys, quick question, I've done research but struggled to find any years/law information, so if anyone could help me I'd appreciate it.

I need to know the years that the following states stopped executing people for homosexuality/homosexual acts, and if possible, what punishment they faced afterwards:

  • Texas
  • Kansas
  • The Dakotas (both)
  • Iowa
  • Missouri
  • Virginia
  • Kentucky
  • Tennessee
  • The Carolinas (Both)
  • Maryland
  • New York
  • Michigan
  • Ohio

Thanks for any help :)
 

jahenders

Banned
I can find no evidence that any of those states ever executed people for homosexuality. While it's certainly possible that some individual killed someone for being gay, that's not the state doing it.
 
I dont think execution was ever used against homosexuality or even sodomy.
The shame was enough of a punishment.

Although I wouldnt mind seeing homophobic people being executed lol​
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I can find no evidence that any of those states ever executed people for homosexuality. While it's certainly possible that some individual killed someone for being gay, that's not the state doing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States

In 1779, Thomas Jefferson wrote a law in Virginia which contained a punishment of castration for men who engage in sodomy,[2] however, what was intended by Jefferson as a liberalization of the sodomy laws in Virginia at that time was rejected by the Virginia Legislature, which continued to prescribe death as the maximum penalty for the crime of sodomy in that state.[3]

Of course there's a difference between sodomy and homosexuality, a big one, but the point is that these laws were often used as a way to persecute homosexual men.
 
I still see no evidence that any state actually executed anyone for homosexuality ...

I imagine that if they discovered someone was a homosexual, it was usually through accusations of having sex with another man, and so executing someone for acts of sodomy more often than not = execution for homosexuality. On that site I linked, a number of states showed to only prosecute homosexuals for sodomy, and not heterosexuals.
 
I still see no evidence that any state actually executed anyone for homosexuality ...

Footnote 33 of this article states as follows:
There were a total of five documented death sentences in the colonies for same‑sex sodomy during the 1600s, two each in Connecticut and New York, and one in Virginia. In addition, there was another prosecution in New York in which the records do not show disposition of the case. There were a total of 162 known death sentences carried out in all the colonies during the century, making the five known for same-sex sodomy about 3% of the total. See Raymond Paternoster, Capital Punishment in America (New York: Lexington Books, 1991), page 4. In addition, according to Executions in the U.S. 1608-1987.: The Espy File, there were 10 known executions for sodomy, either buggery, bestiality, or type unknown, in the colonies between 1625 and 1674 (one in Virginia, two in New York, three in Massachusetts, and four in Connecticut). There also were five between 1757 and 1801 (three in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, and one under Spanish law in California.) The 83-year gap is curious, but there are claims (not in the Espy File) of three more death sentences carried out for sodomy between 1692 and 1743 (one each in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Georgia.) The Espy file, a masterwork, can be accessed at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.
This lists a total of 15 executions for "sodomy/buggery/bestiality," including colonial times. Here, however, the claim is made that of the ten death sentences passed by colonial courts, "almost all involved assault or sex with animals."

So there apparently were executions during colonial times, but few if any after independence, although capital punishment remained on the books in some states. And it isn't clear how many of the executions were for consensual activity.
 
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