Capital punishment is a highly controversial topic in the United States. This discussion will give you the opportunity to conduct research and articulate your informed opinion on this issue.

To successfully complete this week's discussion, you will need to:

• Refer to Chapter 13 of your textbook.
• Use the Strayer University Library and/or the Internet to conduct independent research on capital punishment. 

Please respond to the following in a substantive post:

• Provide a brief overview of capital punishment in the United States (history, major arguments before and against it, and so forth).
• Articulate your views, informed by evidence, on capital punishment. Consider questions such as these when expressing your viewpoint: 
  • Is it constitutional? 
  • Is the threat of a death penalty sentence an effective deterrent to crime? 
  • What is capital punishment's future in the United States?  

Be sure to provide full citations and references, formatted according to Strayer Writing Standards.   

• For assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course. 

Please respond substantively to at least one other post. Choose to respond to those who have few or no responses. If possible, choose the post of a classmate who has a different viewpoint on capital punishment from you.

Consider questions such as these in your response: 

• What is the most persuasive point your classmate made in their post? 
• In what ways did your classmate's post-change your thinking about capital punishment, if at all? 
• What is one argument relating to capital punishment that you would like your classmate to consider? 
• What additional resource(s) would you recommend to your classmate to deepen their knowledge of the subject? 
  • Be sure to explain what you found most useful about this resource.