The death penalty is one of the most widely talked about controversies in America. Beginning with Furman v Georgia, the way society viewed the execution of our criminals has been under a microscope. Despite this, our country's standpoint has remained historically pro-capital punishment even with the recent rise of new arguments. In this class we will discuss the historical context for and current issues regarding capital punishment. We will go over historical (and really interesting) cases, such as Cronic: The case of the sleeping lawyer. And at the end of the class we will conduct a debate on the constitutionality of the death penalty as a whole and in practice.