Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: California Debates Use of Lethal Injection, 10/02/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec06/injection_10-02.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is capital punishment? Is it legal in your state?

2. What is cruel and unusual punishment?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What aspect of the death penalty is California debating right now?

A district judge in California is set to decide if the state's use of lethal injection is cruel and unusual and therefore a violation of the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

2. What is the key question in the case?

"The Constitution forbids punishments which inflict severe degrees of pain, and the question in this case is whether California's lethal injection protocol violates that constitutional prohibition," U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said in a hearing last week, the Associated Press reported.

3. What is California's protocol for lethal injection?

California uses a protocol or procedure that involves three drugs: an initial sedative that renders the inmate unconscious, a paralyzing agent that stops breathing muscles and a heart-stopping drug.

4. What have the defense's lawyers argued?

Morales' lawyers have argued that because the people who sedate the inmate are not licensed medical practitioners they can make mistakes. If not sedated properly the paralyzing agent only makes an inmate seem like he is serene when in fact he is experiencing severe internal pain.

5. Where is "cruel and unusual punishment" barred in U.S. law? How has the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on this issue?

As part of the Bill of Rights, which was drafted in 1789, the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that "excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Although the death penalty has almost always been legal in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that certain procedures are unconstitutional because they are both cruel and unusual. It is unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded people and minors under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that a particular method of execution is not allowed.

6. How might the decision in this case impact other states?

The decision could have implications for other states that use lethal injection. Of the 38 states that allow capital punishment, 37 use lethal injection.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Based on what you know about this case, if you were the judge, how would you decide? How did you make your decision? What additional information might you want to make your decision?

2. If you were a doctor, would there be any circumstance under which you would participate in an execution? To what degree would you participate? What might be the implications of your decision? As a patient, would you go to a doctor who had participated in an execution? Why or why not?

3. What are the arguments for capital punishment? What are the arguments against?

4. Why do some states allow the death penalty and others don't?

Send your completed essay to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.