Counseling Chapter 20 The Death Penalty Learning Objectives After Reading This Students Should

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CHAPTER 20

The Death Penalty

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Compare and contrast the issues in the debate over capital punishment.

3. Discuss the legal issues that surround the death penalty.

5. Speculate about the future of capital punishment.

LESSON PLAN

Correlated to PowerPoints

I. The Debate over Capital Punishment

Learning Objective 1: Compare and contrast the issues in the debate over capital punishment.

A. The debate over capital punishment: Retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation are

usually cited as the reasons for keeping the death penalty.

B. Arguments supporting capital punishment:

1. The death penalty deters individuals from committing violent acts.

3. The death penalty prevents individuals who have committed murder from doing

further harm.

C. Arguments opposing capital punishment:

2. It is wrong for a government to participate in the intentional killing of its

citizens.

4. Innocent people have been executed.

Class Discussion/Activity

Break the students into groups based on their overall opinion of the death penalty, regardless of

the state’s philosophy. Allow the students to debate this topic.

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Instructor’s Manual

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Media Tool

Visit http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/6719

o Execution of the Mentally Ill

o Discuss this in class. What are the recent trends in executing those who may be deemed

“mentally ill” or “intellectually disabled”? Ask students to weigh in on the practice of

capital punishment to those who fit into these and other categories of mental disability.

See Assignments 1 and 2

II. The Death Penalty in America

Learning Objective 2: Explain the history of the death penalty in America.

A. The death penalty has been controversial since colonial times. Executions were carried

out in public until the 1830s; it has strong historical roots in American culture.

B. Death Row Population

1. Between 1930 and 1967, before the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a stay of

executions, 3,859 men and women were executed by state and federal authorities.

3. After the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty in

4. The numbers of people facing the death penalty increased dramatically between

1976 and 2000, but it has begun to fall slightly since 2000.

5. As of 2016, 2,902 people were awaiting execution.

C. Public Opinion: Since 1936, Gallup has asked the public, “Do you favor or oppose the

death penalty for persons convicted of murder?”

2. With the rise in crime in the late 1960s, opinion shifted to a tougher stance.

4. Currently, it is estimated that 60 percent of Americans support the death

penalty.

6. The public is about evenly split when respondents were asked to choose

between life without parole and death.

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Chapter 20: The Death Penalty

What If Scenario

What if a defendant murdered one of your family members? Would you vote for or against the

perpetrator receiving the death penalty or be accepting of a life sentence?

III. The Death Penalty and the Constitution

Learning Objective 3: Discuss the legal issues that surround the death penalty.

A. Death obviously differs from other punishments in that it is final and irreversible. The

Supreme Court has examined the decision-making process in capital cases to ensure that

the Constitution’s requirements regarding due process, equal protection, and cruel and

unusual punishment are fulfilled.

B. Key U.S. Supreme Court Decisions

1. Furman v. Georgia (1972): The death penalty, as administered, constituted

cruel and unusual punishment.

2. Gregg v. Georgia (1976): Laws that required the sentencing judge or jury to

take into account specific aggravating and mitigating factors in deciding which

3. McCleskey v. Kemp (1987): The Court rejected a challenge to the Georgia

5. Ring v. Arizona (2002): The Supreme Court ruled that juries, rather than

6. Roper v. Simmons (2005): A majority of the justices decided that individuals

cannot be sentenced to death for crimes they committed before they reached the

age of 18.

Class Discussion/Activity

Have students read the Supreme Court decision in Georgia v. Furman. Do they think the ruling

still has currency today? Have a class discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the

Furman ruling.

C. Continuing Legal Issues

1. Execution of the Mentally Ill

a. Ford v. Wainwright (1985): Rickey Ray Rector

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in part.

b. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that the mentally ill should not

be executed, how competence should be determined remains an issue. A

second issue concerns the morality of treating an individual’s mental

illness so that they can be executed.

2. Effective Counsel

a. Strickland v. Washington (1984): The Supreme Court ruled that

3. Death-Qualified Juries

a. The Supreme Court has ruled that potential jurors who have general

objections to the death penalty or whose religious convictions oppose its

use cannot be automatically excluded from jury service in capital cases.

b. However, they can be removed during voir dire.

What If Scenario

What if a potential juror opposed the death penalty? Should that person be excluded from jury

duty?

4. Execution for Child Rape

5. Appeals

a. The writ of habeas corpus is the only means by which the federal courts

can hear challenges to the convictions and sentences by individuals in

state prisons.

b. McCleskey v. Zant (1991): Except in exceptional circumstances, lower

federal courts must dismiss second and subsequent habeas corpus

Chapter 20: The Death Penalty

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What If Scenario

What if you had the ability to change the average amount of time individuals spent on death row

and follow through on executions in a more timely manner? Would you? If so, why and if not,

why not?

6. International Law

a. The rights of foreign nationals in the criminal justice system have added

a new dimension to legal issues surrounding the death penalty.

b. As of April 2014, 139 foreign nationals from 36 countries were on

d. President George W. Bush announced in February 2005 that the United

States will comply with the Vienna Convention.

i. In November 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said

that the president did not have the power to direct such a review.

Media Tool

Visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/death-by-fire/

o “Death by Fire”

o Discuss this in class. Ask students if they had any knowledge of this case before reading

the article. Have them debate whether or not Cameron Todd Willingham was guilty of

the crime he was charged with and convicted of.

IV. Individuals on Death Row

Learning Objective 4: Characterize the individuals on death row.

A. Who Is on Death Row?

1. Individuals on death row tend to be poorly educated men from low-income

backgrounds; the number of minority group members is far out of proportion to

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2. Most individuals on death row have a prior felony conviction.

3. As of 2016, there were 55 women on death row.

B. Where Was the Crime Committed?

1. About 51 percent of those under sentence of death are in the South, 36 percent

2. About 65 percent of all executions from 1977–2017 have been carried out in

five states: Texas (542), Virginia (112), Oklahoma (112), Florida (92), and

Missouri (88).

Class Discussion/Activity

Research a female who was put to death. Determine what crime she committed and allow

students to discuss the case. Would they have changed the sentence, and what is their perspective

of the individual’s case?

C. Who Was the Prosecutor?

2. Even within states, the probability that a prosecutor will ask for the death

penalty differs.

D. Was Race a Factor?

2. Research shows imposition of the death penalty in Georgia was influenced by

the race of the murder victim and, to a lesser extent, the race of the offender.

3. The death sentence is more likely to be imposed when the victim was white. (In

See Assignments 3 and 4

V. A Continuing Debate

Learning Objective 5: Speculate about the future of capital punishment.

A. In January 2000, Illinois Governor George Ryan, a longtime supporter of the death

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1. Ryan noted that since 1976, Illinois had executed 12 people yet freed 13 from

3. This signaled a major shift in death penalty politics.

Class Discussion/Activity

Have the class develop a survey regarding the capital punishment. Allow the students to

administer this to 10 people and report their findings back to the class. Include if the survey had

a surprising effect on the student. Were the outcomes different than expected?

What If Scenario

What if evidence of someone’s innocence surfaced after the person was convicted and sentenced

to death? Should a new trial be given? Should it be brought into appellate review?

Media Tool

Visit http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/multimedia-1?did=142&scid=42

o Death Penalty Information Center

o Have students spend time browsing the site, then discuss the different things they learned

about the death penalty as a class. (Students will have each discovered different

information on this comprehensive site depending on where they browsed.) Were they

surprised at the statistics they found, the types of crimes punishable by death, or any

other information?

LECTURE NOTES

Chapter 20 focuses in the death penalty. Students generally find this topic quite compelling. Yet

it is also true that conversation on controversial issues can get out of hand. It is a good idea to put

boundaries and terms on the discussion. If you and the class created terms to debate when

working on Chapter 19, use them again here. If not, then this too is a good place to encourage

students to generate respectful terms by which to engage one another.

Instructor’s Manual

The authors give a short history of execution in America. What is important for students to

recognize is that this has always been a controversial practice. Debate on the issue is not a new

phenomenon. The chapter highlights the nuance and complications associated with determining

public opinion on the death penalty.

This chapter describes who is on death row. The authors also illustrate demographics on crime

location, prosecutors, and matters of race. It is important for students to be aware of all the steps

in the process and the role discretion plays throughout. Fairness is often an issue that arises when

discussing capital punishment. It may be useful to discuss the concept of fairness and what its

role in the criminal justice system ought to be.

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Refer students to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, Section 2 (Public

2. Ask students to reflect on what might be appropriate ways to raise awareness about death

penalty issues. Show them a commercial that aired on MTV, and ask who the target

3. Refer students to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

4. Have students discuss their opinions on convicted males and convicted females in terms

ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Although the answers provided below will vary from student to student, the responses should

include at a minimum a discussion of the following key points.

1. What are the major arguments supporting and opposing capital punishment? Which one seems

to you the most important?

2. Which of the continuing legal issues should be scrutinized by the Supreme Court as in

violation of the Eighth Amendment?

3. Given that the death penalty has been abolished in other Western democracies, why do people

in the United States support it?

4. What alternatives to death might achieve the retributive, deterrent, and incapacitative goals of

capital punishment?

in part.