Book about 19th century boy murderer blasts child executions in the U.S.

Brumberg

By Susan Lang

"Americans have an ugly history of executing poor children. In the United States we have been killing our children for more than three centuries," argues an award-winning Cornell historian.

To illuminate some important, but forgotten, history, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of history, human development and gender studies, uses the prism of a single historical case in a new book, Kansas Charley: The Story of a l9th Century Boy Murderer (Viking, 2003).

On the eve of the scheduled Nov. 10 trial in Fairfax County, Va., of teenager Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the two men accused of the Beltway sniper murders a year ago, Brumberg recounts the story of Charley Miller more than a century ago. Poor, orphaned at 5, beaten for bedwetting, Miller became a tramp by age 13. By 14, he had been sexually abused and was on the verge of starvation. He took on odd jobs in his quest to go out West to become a cowboy.

In 1890, while riding the rails, Miller, who called himself "Kansas Charley," befriended two older, more affluent youths. When the boys ridiculed him, Miller shot them in the head in a Union Pacific boxcar as it entered Wyoming, and then robbed them. Following a voluntary confession, Miller was convicted of first-degree murder. After 18 months and many clemency petitions from around the country, the 17-year-old was hanged, largely for political reasons. "Miller was more valuable dead as a symbol of order and restraint than as a lifer in the penitentiary," writes Brumberg.

Miller's case ignited the interest of the public because of his age, his poverty and the fact that he was white. "The prospect of seeing a blond, blue-eyed boy hang by the neck unnerved many 19th-century Americans," writes Brumberg. "My retelling of Charley's story at this point in time is intended to remind us that the continued use of the juvenile death penalty is a particularly vicious kind of racial and social class discrimination against the erring sons of the dispossessed. Charley's case mocks the canonical idea that we provide equal, disinterested treatment before the law."

In addition to detailing Miller's story, Brumberg also explores various facets of the juvenile death penalty in America, including the latest psychological findings about the teenage brain, the contributions of "boy culture" and the social, economic and legal issues that impact on juvenile justice in America today.

Throughout this parable about the juvenile justice system, Brumberg points out the differences between past and present, but she also draws parallels to today's juvenile justice system, which, she insists, is still riddled with discrimination. "Since the Civil War, there have been hundreds of other [juvenile death penalty] cases besides Charley Miller, some involving boys as young as 13 or 14," she said.

Brumberg is a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and the author of the award-winning books about the history of adolescent girls, Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa (1988), and The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (1997).