SMNR: Capital Punishment, Advanced: Race & the Death Penalty

• Semester: Spring 2024
• Course ID: 397S
• Credit Hours: 3
• Unique: 28924

Description

This seminar will examine historic and contemporary issues of race and the death penalty within American law and jurisprudence. Through this course, students will learn substantive principles; study the growing body of critical legal scholarship covering the matter; and examine the potential (and limits) of the law. By the end of the course, students will be able to analyze the interplay between race and the death penalty; acquire tools to think critically about its legal framework and engage with the role of racialized identities in its use. Utilizing – among other things – case law, statutory interpretation, statistical data, legal scholarship and legislative efforts, the course will undertake the project of grappling with a real-world example of the racialized nature of the death penalty.