American Death Penalty in Theory and Practice

Catalog description

Over the past forty years, in response to controversy over the American death penalty, the Supreme Court has created a framework of rules designed to make the death penalty conform to current societal standards. In this course, we will identify the critical issues identified by the courts (and the critics) in light of the practical realities of capital litigation, and we will ask whether the efforts to address these issues have been successful. The class will use specific case examples to identify the critical points in a death penalty case- for example, the decision to designate a prosecution as "capital", the performance of defense counsel, the penalty decision, and the method of execution. These critical stages will provide a platform for discussing critical issues like the proper limits of discretion; bias; cruelty; and the decision to disqualify certain groups of people from capital punishment (the mentally disabled, minors). Students will be assigned readings from differnt kinds of sources. Cases from the Supreme Court will identify key issues and the efforts to address them under the law. More general death penalty history will provide some context. We will also read pieces by advocates (pro and con). Finally, we will focus on a few specific prosecutions and discuss how abstract theories work in a particular case.