Death Penalty Course @ Moritz College of Law

This course is closed, but call DPIC for teaching this topic

As the absence of recent posts reveals, the course that was the focal point of this blog ended during the first part of 2007 and I have not had occassion to post anything new in this space for many months (even though I have lots and lots of capital coverage on my home blog).  Still, in part because this website keeps generating a bit of traffic, I am going to keep it active (and may still link here from my Sentencing Law and Policy blog because of the great resources my students helped me asemble in this space).

On the topic of great resources, folks at the Death Penalty Information Center sensibly suggested that I link over to its teaching project, known as Capital Punishment in Context, as I close up shop here.  Through links and other terrific resources, this DPIC project incorporates detailed teaching notes, sample syllabi, and a variety of supplementary materials to support instructors from multiple disciplines such as sociology, criminology, legal studies, literature, writing, statistics, and religion.  Anyone seriously interesting in any number of capital punishment topics should be sure to check out Capital Punishment in Context.

Welcome and let's get ready to innovate

Welcome to the launch of a new blogging adventure: Death Penalty Course @ Moritz College of Law.  This uninspiring title (which we can shorten to DP @ M) is meant to make clear the focus of this blog is the Death Penalty Course that I am teaching this semester at OSU's Moritz College of Law. 

Though the title is uninspired, I hope that both the contents and very construct of this blog will inspire a new type of engagement with the death penalty and with on-line media for students.  Even after nearly three years of focused blogging at my main blog, I continue to be amazed by what I learn from others and by the substantive insights I gain through the process of blogging.  Consequently, I have decided to try making this blog a focal point for my Death Penalty Course this semester.

As I gear up for my initial class today, my tentative plan is to be the main instructor and main blogger for the first few weeks of class.  During this period, I hope to be able to give the students an effective and enticing overview of the modern law, policy, practice and practicalities of the death penalty in the United States.  I will thereafter assign groups of students to select topics of interest for future classes, and they will be expected to post readings and class discussion ideas on this blog.

I am making this blog "open to the public" in order to encourage persons other than my students to engage with the blog and to use the comments to provide views on whether this new blog adventure seems like a good idea.  If there is encouraging feedback from my students and others, I'll probably invest (too much) energy in this new project; if the feedback is less encouraging, this blog may wither away as the weather starts warming up and other interests draw my attention.

Posted by Professor Douglas Berman