Life or Death: Using a Real-World Case to Assess Student Death Penalty Opinion

• In Event: Death Penalty Public Opinion & Education

Abstract

There has been a significant body of scholarship about Justice Thurgood Marshall's hypothesis regarding the nature of death penalty public opinion. However, much of this research is based on hypothetical scenarios or general classroom experiences and not real-world examples of the capital punishment process. This paper evaluates the power of Marshall¹s hypothesis though a classroom exercise where students are exposed to the trial and punishment transcripts of a real death penalty case. Using a student sample from universities in Texas and California, we investigate how exposure to such information not only creates a unique learning experience for students and opportunities for faculty collaboration in the classroom, but also provides a new way to assess how exposure to information can impact death penalty opinion.

Authors

• Denise Paquette Boots, University of Texas at Dallas

• Stacy Mallicoat, California State University, Fullerton