LAW-2425 Death Penalty: American Public Policy And International Human Rights
This 2 credit Seminar examines capital punishment as a criminal sentence from three different perspectives: American law, public policy, and practice; international human rights principles and the status of the death penalty worldwide; and the human stories behind the cases as seen in the ways in which capital punishment is portrayed in films and documentaries. Reading assignments will be drawn from VOICES OF THE DEATH PENALTY DEBATE: A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (R. Murphy, Vandeplas Publishing, 2010) as extensively supplemented by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, materials from new death scholarship, and information provided by the Death Penalty Information Center and Amnesty International. Most of the basic readings will be available on the internet. The first part of the course will be devoted to a discussion of how the use of film and documentary in upper class courses can improve the learning process, engage and motivate students, and promote both public understanding of legal problems and generate law reform. Assigned readings will include two law review articles on this subject, by Professor Kate Nace Day and myself, published in the Stetson Law Review and the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law. (See, "Just Trying to be Human in This Place": Storytelling and Film in the First-Year Classroom, 39 Stetson L. Rev. 247 (2009) and "Just Trying to be Human in This Place," Too: From Inside the Law School Classroom to FILMANDLAW.COM, 19 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y & L. 496 (2012)). Numerous examples of the use of film and documentary to teach law will be presented. Depending on the makeup of the class, students may have an opportunity to make short films or Op-Docs. (Subjects for these Op-Docs may be chosen from the many death penalty topics examined in the course). Part two of the class will introduce students to the history of capital punishment in the U.S., the structure and content of American death penalty law, trends and current issues, and the basic question of whether it is time to declare the death penalty unconstitutional. Major U.S. Supreme Court cases will be assigned in each of these areas. Films on these topics will be screened in class to remove the abstraction of formal legal theory and sensitize students to the human dimensions of death penalty cases, pro and con. This approach will reintroduce students to earlier class discussions of federalism, theories of constitutional interpretation, the role of courts and legislatures, and basic Eighth Amendment doctrine. Topics include Supreme Court case law, federal death penalty statutes, sentencing procedures, juveniles, women, race, innocence/wrongful convictions, cost, deterrence, mental illness, execution methods, and life without parole. Part three will make the same analysis of issues in international law and capital punishment starting with the Nuremburg Trials and the International Declaration of Human Rights. What is the structure of international human rights law as it applies to the death penalty? Where does the United States stand in terms of its use of capital punishment in relation to death penalty practices around the world? How do international trends and international law influence attitudes and policies in the U.S.? Is it appropriate for the Supreme Court to rely on international law in interpreting the Eighth Amendment? Why have the courts ignored actions by the U.N. and international criminal tribunals? These questions form the core of this part of the course. As a Seminar, formative assessments of student work will be made on a class by class basis (approximately 25% of the final grade). Summative assessments will be based on a take-home final exam (approximately 75% of the final grade).