Instructions Your final examination will be a take-home . It is due Thursday, April 22, 2021 by 12:30 p.m. 10 points off for every 24-hour period it is late, beginning at 12:30 p.m. on April 22. Please submit your paper on Canvas. This exam is designed to allow you to express your personal feelings and thoughts about the death penalty by incorporating what you learned during the semester. You should feel free to take any position you wish, but you must support your position with facts and ideas that you learned in class. Your answer must refer to the readings, classroom discussions, guest speakers, videos, and any other material we covered. My suggestion for how best to prepare your response is to first spend a great deal of time just thinking about your answer. Second, I would jot down ideas as they come to you. Third, I would organize everything into an outline. Finally, I would write the paper from that outline. Again, feel free to consult any materials you want and to consult with each other. No outside research is expected or desired. The answer must comprise 8 pages, double-spaced, with normal margins.Final examination questionAre you for or against capital punishment? Your answer should first address this question as one of theory. As a theory of punishment, are you for or against capital punishment? Defend your position with the theoretical foundations of why you believe what you believe. Consider the moral arguments for and against capital punishment outlined in the text in Chapters 1-7. You must then address the issue of capital punishment as it is practiced. Your opinion may or may not change. Your answer must address issues of race and class and at least five (5) of the following concepts, almost all of which are addressed in the text.1. Legal representation2. The interests of the victims’ families3. Retri
bution as a justification for punishment4. Issues of innocence5. Political considerations6. The possibility of rehabilitation7. Public safety8. Methods of execution9. The position of the major religions10. Your own personal moral code or religious beliefs11. The execution of the borderline intellectually disabled12. The execution of women13. Jurors’ misconceptions of the law14. Conditions on death row15. Juror discretion16. The success or failure of statutory narrowing of the class of eligible defendants17. The interests of the defendants’ families18. The brutalization effect19. Televising executions and the secrecy of executions20. The costs associated with capital punishment21. The continued presence of arbitrariness You are free to structure your answer in any way. You are encouraged to be passionate but you must be factual by supporting or documenting the positions you take. You are not limited to the items listed above, but you must address issues of race and class and at least 5 other issues. You are certainly permitted, even encouraged, to select some of these issues even if they do not support your position as long as you explain why the ones that do favor your position outweigh those that do not. In other words, you may support capital punishment but be bothered by what appears to be an epidemic of incompetent counsel. Or you may oppose capital punishment but feel that the interests of victims need to be addressed differently than they presently are. Here is your chance to intelligently explain how you would design a system to address what we should do with those convicted of intentional murder and how society should best respond to the needs of homicide victims and their families – what you would change, what you think works. You must demonstrate that you read the handouts and the excerpts from the text.