Weekly Online Lesson Online Lesson Archive Grade Level: 9-12 Subject: Legal Studies/Ethics

The Ultimate Punishment

The debate over the death penalty intensifies over the execution of Juan Raul Garza for murder and drug offenses. Garza's sentence was carried out eight days after convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh became the first federal inmate put to death since 1963.

These executions come at a time when DNA and other evidence has exonerated enough death row inmates to shake public confidence in the system. In a recent poll, support for capital punishment has slipped from a peak of 80 percent in 1994 to 65 percent this year.

Many proponents of the death penalty believe the death penalty deters murders, while others feel it is a measure of retribution for the ultimate crime. Opponents include religious objectors who reject all killing as immoral, criminologists who find no evidence that the death penalty actually deters crime, and human rights activists who see it as simply a barbaric act, one that most European countries have already abolished.

In this week's lesson you will examine the arguments for and against the death penalty, and consider, or possibly challenge, your own convictions.

History and Background

The first site you will visit is the Death Penalty Information Center. This award-winning site is packed with great resources, but for now go to the Information Topics page and click History of the Death Penalty. Scroll down and view the chart of executions by year from 1608 until 2000.

Scroll back up and click Part I: Introduction to the Death Penalty. This essay discusses capital punishment from as early as the Eighteenth Century, through America's Colonial Period, and into the Twentieth Century. As you read, look for reasons behind increases and decreases in the number of executions. What were several inventions aimed at making executions more humane? When was the death penalty abolished in America, and when was it reinstated?

Continue on to Part II and read about the International Human Rights Doctrine, limitations on the death penalty, and an overview of several death penalty issues.

Opposing Arguments

To learn about arguments against the death penalty, start by visiting the Campaign to End the Death Penalty site. Read the home page text, and then click Five Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty. For each of the five arguments, numerous statistics are presented or alluded to. Do you agree that the statistics adequately support the argument? Can you find any flaws in the way the statistics are presented or used? How do these arguments support or challenge your own opinion?

Now turn to Amnesty International's Death Penalty site and read Questions and Answers on the Death Penalty. Why does Amnesty International oppose the death penalty in all cases without exception? When, in their opinion, is taking a human life justified? In what ways does Amnesty International still consider lethal injection inhumane?

Supporting Arguments

To read arguments in support of the death penalty, visit Pro-death Penalty.com. Start by going to Articles and Interviews and reading just the titles and abstracts of the articles listed, many of which represent views in support of the death penalty or refute arguments against it. Since there are quite a few articles here, click on an read the ones that interest you the most, or the ones that challenge your position. Make sure you read The Rationality Syndrome - Statistics Fail Activists, an article from the Columbia University Spectator, that calls into question statistics used in opposition of the death penalty. In what ways have numbers be skewed, according to the author?

How do the arguments you read support or challenge your opinion? Has your opinion changed or been shaped by what you have read?

Death Penalty Issues

For a comprehensive look at the issues surrounding the death penalty, go to the site of Michigan State University's Death Penalty Curricula for High School. From the main menu, click Arguments For & Against the Death Penalty. For each of the issues listed, click Agree or Disagree. Read the statement favoring your opinion, and then choose Click for Testimony for additional support from legal experts. Choose Click for Other Side to read contrary statements testimony. Repeat this procedure for each issue presented.

How do these arguments support or challenge your opinion? Has your opinion changed or been shaped by what you have read?

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