About the Death Penalty: Teacher Overview

This teacher overview describes explorato­ry cur­ric­u­lar mate­ri­als about the death penal­ty, divid­ed into four sec­tions. ​“Jump to” links with­in each descrip­tion jump direct­ly to that part of the site, or you can return to this top menu.

Arguments For and Against the Death Penalty

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This is per­haps the most sub­stan­tial part of the site with regard to the philo­soph­i­cal, eth­i­cal, and judi­cial issues con­cern­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. It is com­posed of four arguments:

1. The Death Penalty Prevents Future Murders
2. A Just Society Requires the Death Penalty for the Taking of a Life
3. The Risk of Executing the Innocent Precludes the Use of the Death Penalty, and
4. The Death Penalty is Applied Unfairly and Should Not be Used.

Each of these argu­ments is bal­anced with rebut­tals and expert tes­ti­mo­ny from both sides. 

Stages in a Capital Case

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This por­tion of the site offers an inter­ac­tive explo­ration of eight stages in a cap­i­tal case. The stages are: pre-tri­al, guilt phase tri­al, penal­ty phase tri­al, direct appeal, state post-con­vic­tion review, fed­er­al habeas cor­pus, clemen­cy, and final­ly exe­cu­tion. Each of these stages is fur­ther divid­ed into sub­sec­tions that go into the details of each phase of the process. This sec­tion may be of par­tic­u­lar use to those wish­ing to explore the judi­cial sys­tem and its func­tions in Civics or U.S. government classes. 

History of the Death Penalty

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The sec­tion on the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty is includ­ed to pro­vide his­tor­i­cal con­text and a sense of the past and present issues sur­round­ing it. The his­to­ry here pro­vides names, dates, and philo­soph­i­cal posi­tions as a start­ing point for fur­ther research. The sec­tion is divid­ed into the six prin­ci­pal head­ings. (Note: More detail is giv­en to this sum­ma­ry since it may be used as an intro­duc­tion to one of the units provided.)

1) History

Under this top­ic head­ing a brief sum­ma­ry of the his­to­ry of Early Death Penalty Laws, with an empha­sis on The Death Penalty in America. It begins by iden­ti­fy­ing the ear­ly death penal­ty laws and their cod­i­fi­ca­tion, from the Code of King Hammurabi (18^th cen­tu­ry BCE) to the reforms of Great Britain’s death penal­ty from 1823 to 1837. Given the influ­ence that Great Britain had on America social thought, the dis­po­si­tions and debates regard­ing the death penal­ty car­ried over. The laws regard­ing pun­ish­ment by death var­ied from colony to colony, and sev­er­al exam­ples are given.

2) Early Questions About the Death Penalty

This sec­tion deals with the oppo­si­tion to and sup­port of the death penal­ty in America dur­ing Colonial Times. It pro­vides the names of sig­nif­i­cant indi­vid­u­als who addressed the issue of the death penal­ty and a brief descrip­tion of their posi­tions. The issues of deter­rence, crimes pun­ish­able by death, the ​“bru­tal­iz­ing effect,” and revi­sions in the law are raised.

3) Changes in Death Penalty Laws

In the Nineteenth Century many states began to reduce the num­ber of their cap­i­tal crimes. They began to build more pen­i­ten­tiaries, where exe­cu­tions were moved away from the pub­lic eye. This sec­tion sketch­es the his­to­ry of death penal­ty reform, iden­ti­fies the states that abol­ished the death penal­ty, lists the crimes pun­ish­able by death, and notes the intro­duc­tion of new meth­ods of exe­cu­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the elec­tric chair. By the Early and Mid-Twentieth Century six states had out­lawed the death penal­ty and three oth­ers had lim­it­ed its use to trea­son and first-degree mur­der of law enforce­ment offi­cials. Global his­tor­i­cal dynam­ics, such as the Russian Revolution, shift­ed pub­lic opin­ion; con­se­quent­ly five of the six states rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty by 1920. In addi­tion, more humane forms of exe­cu­tion were sought. The gas cham­ber is giv­en as an exam­ple. This sec­tion traces the ebb and flow in the use of the death penal­ty and gives supporting data.

4) Constitutionality of the Death Penalty in America

The social tur­bu­lence in America dur­ing the 1960s brought chal­lenges to the fun­da­men­tal legal­i­ty of the death penal­ty. The con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty under the 5^th, 8^th, and 14^th amend­ments was called into ques­tion and debated.

Arguments against the death penal­ty as ​“cru­el and unusu­al” pun­ish­ment and issues of social jus­tice (i.e., who is qual­i­fied to serve on the jury of a death penal­ty case) are raised through actu­al cap­i­tal cas­es. Arguments for sus­pend­ing the death penal­ty based on arbi­trary sen­tenc­ing, and rein­stat­ing the death penal­ty based on state statutes to end arbi­trari­ness, are giv­en. Sentencing guide­lines and pro­ce­dur­al reforms are addressed, again using case prece­dents. The ten-year mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions end­ed in 1977, with the exe­cu­tion of Gary Gilmore. That same year lethal injec­tion was introduced.

5) Limitations on the Death Penalty

This sec­tion deals with lim­i­ta­tions on the use of the death penal­ty imposed with­in the United States, specif­i­cal­ly with regard to men­tal ill­ness and men­tal retar­da­tion, race, and juve­niles. Cases are pre­sent­ed for each of these pop­u­la­tions. Using this sec­tion in con­junc­tion with the state by state data and sta­tis­tics sec­tion of the site can help iden­ti­fy pat­terns, espe­cial­ly with regard to race.

6) Current Death Penalty Issues

The last sub­sec­tion of the History sec­tion deals with par­tic­u­lar com­pelling issues and social pop­u­la­tions. They are: Innocence (Specifically, evi­dence of inno­cence); Public Support (Historical fluc­tu­a­tions in pub­lic opin­ion accord­ing to Gallup sur­veys); Religion and the Death Penalty (Differences between denom­i­na­tions and their sup­port or oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty); Women and the Death Penalty (Women have con­sti­tut­ed only 3% of U.S. exe­cu­tions); The Federal Death Penalty (The fed­er­al employ­ment of the death penal­ty for mur­der of a gov­ern­ment offi­cial, kid­nap­ping result­ing in death, run­ning of a large-scale drug enter­prise, and trea­son. In addi­tion, this sec­tion address­es stream­lin­ing the death penal­ty process and the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent defen­dants.); International Views (Presently, over half of the coun­tries in the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty have abol­ished the death penal­ty. The United Nations Human Rights Commission passed a res­o­lu­tion sup­port­ing a world­wide mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 1999 and called on those that have not abol­ished the death penal­ty to restrict its use. A list of coun­tries with and with­out the death penal­ty is pro­vid­ed.); and Sources (A list of sources from which this sec­tion was writ­ten is pro­vid­ed. These sources also pro­vide avenues for fur­ther research on the issues presented.)

Methods of Execution

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There are five meth­ods of exe­cu­tion cur­rent­ly autho­rized in the United States: hang­ing, fir­ing squad, elec­tro­cu­tion, gas cham­ber, and lethal injec­tion. This part of the site offers tech­ni­cal descrip­tions of each of these meth­ods, which states use each form, and detailed descrip­tions of what actu­al­ly hap­pens to the inmate as a result of being put to death with each method. These detailed descrip­tions often escape the pub­lic dis­course about capital punishment.