Capital crime in society

By the end of the semester each student will have had time to carefully consider why murder is considered a capital crime in society. They will have examined why murder is committed (psychological), how murder is committed (forensic examination and crime scene reconstruction), how society reacts to murder (sociological, eg. Internet awareness of the Casey Anthony trial), investigation and prosecution (criminology) of the perpetrator. This final paper will ask the student to distill all of this reading and knowledge down into a final 3 page paper that asks: “how have I come to understand the taking of another’s life in the most complete manner right now?” The student will have to document what were their notions of murder coming in to the class, and how that preconception has (or has not) changed based on what they saw over the course of the semester. All of the Quaker testimonies must be woven into the final paper, as it can be argued that murder strikes at the heart of the Quaker belief that all life is precious and that a spark of the Divine resides within each person.