Uses various historical, legal and social perspectives to examine the shifting rationales and nature of contemporary United States death penalty debates: public opinion; racial disparities and the historical legacy of lynching; United States Supreme Court decisions; the death penalty's efficacy as a criminal punishment, its personal impacts, and contemporary problems with its current application. Sociology 307D and 308 (Topic: Capital Punishment in America) may not both be counted. Three lecture hours a week for one semester.