CITIZEN ADVOCACY CENTER

 

The Death Penalty

Lesson Plan and Activity

 


Grade Level: 9, 10, 11, 12

 

Subject:

 

Duration: Two class sessions

 

Description: This lesson plan will introduce the concept of the death penalty, discuss the specifics of capital punishment in Illinois and allow students to experience a mock capital punishment deliberation.

 

Goals:

ISBE Standards:

  1. Social Science

·        14A: Understand and explain basic principles of the United States Government.

 

  1. Language Art

·        1A:  Apply word analysis and vocabulary skills to comprehend selections;

·        4A:  Listen effectively in formal and informal situations;

·        4B:  Speak effectively using language appropriate to the situation and audience.

 

Objectives:

  1. Define and understand capital punishment/the death penalty.
  2. Understand the history of the death penalty in Illinois.
  3. Examine and participate in the jury’s process of weighing aggravating and mitigating factors to determine whether

 

Materials:

Handout – Death Penalty in IL

Handout –Jury Deliberation Worksheet

Handout – Case Studies

 

Instructions and Activities

 

Lecture

 

  1. The Death Penalty – Background
    1. What is capital punishment? Sentencing convicted criminals to death.
    2. Do we have the death penalty in Illinois? Yes

                                                               i.      Capital punishment is reserved for the most severe offenses.  The Supreme Court has held that it is unconstitutional in cases involving lesser offenses (burglary, rape, etc.)

                                                             ii.      720 ILCS 5/9-1 – a defendant who is convicted of first degree murder and is at least 18 years old at the time the crime is committed may be sentenced to death.

                                                            iii.      On January 11, 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 convicts. One reason for commuting the sentences was that errors have been discovered in the Illinois capital punishment system, including the discovery by Northwestern University Law Students that Anthony Porter and at least twelve other men had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death.

 

  1. Sentencing
    1. Who decides whether to impose the death penalty in Illinois? The Jury.  If a defendant is convicted of a capital crime, the jury is required to consider any mitigating or aggravating factors in a case and make the sentence determination.

                                                               i.      Aggravating Factor – factors that support the imposition of the death penalty in a specific case. (see handout for specifics)

                                                             ii.      Mitigating Factor – factors that suggest that the defendant should not be sentence to death. (see handout for specifics)

                                                            iii.      If the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, then the death sentence is to be imposed.

                                                           iv.      If the mitigating factors outweigh the aggravating factors, then the death penalty is not to be imposed.

 

  1. Why do we punish offenders?
    1. Retribution – if you commit the crime you must do the time. 

                                                               i.      Restoration of equality and justice

                                                             ii.      Punish because the wrongdoer deserves to be punished

    1. Deterrence – to deter/prevent the wrongdoer from committing the crime in the future,

                                                               i.      To compel others to refrain from committing similar crimes.

                                                             ii.      To house serious offenders.  To prevent serious offenders from getting back onto the street.

    1. Rehabilitation – to teach a lesson. 

                                                               i.      To help those accused to become better citizens.

    1. How does capital punishment relate to each of these theories? Is it effective? Why or why not?

 

Resources

 

Michigan State University and Death Penalty Information Center

                                             http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu

 

Activity

 

  1. Students should divide into groups of six to eight.
  2. Distribute the case studies and jury deliberation worksheets to each student.
  3. Read the case studies out loud.
  4. Direct the juries to deliberate whether the suspect should be sentenced to death in each case. (15-20 minutes)
    1. Please note!

                                                               i.      The suspect has already been found guilty.

                                                             ii.      Urge students to make legal arguments not moral ones.  We are not deliberating whether the death penalty is appropriate.

                                                            iii.      In order to pick the death penalty, all members of the group must be in favor of it.

  1. At the end of deliberation, each group should report their decision and reasons for that decision.
  2. When all groups are done reporting, read the actual outcomes to the class.

 

Wrap Up

 

  1. Can you predict the outcome of a death penalty case by reading the facts of the crime?
  2. Does the jury always have all the facts it needs to appropriately decide the sentence?
  3. Who is responsible for presenting all of the evidence to the jury?  What should happen to them if they do a poor job?
  4. Is it fair for different defendants to receive different sentences for similar crimes?
  5. What do you think about the capital punishment system not being failsafe?                  What do you think about innocent individuals being sentenced to death?                  Whose rights should be protected most?  The potentially innocent person or the victims?  Should the quest to find a criminal guilty and sentence that person to death outweigh concerns for an innocent person wrongly convicted who is then sentenced to death?
  6. Is it inconsistent for the state to have a law stating that killing another person is wrong, and then punish people by killing them?

 

 

THE DEATH PENALTY IN ILLINOIS (720 ILCS 5/9-1)

 

 

 

 

AGGRAVATING FACTORS

1.      The murdered individual was a peace officer, fireman, or corrections officer killed in order to prevent the performance of his official duties, or in retaliation for the performance of his official duties, where the defendant knew or should have known that the deceased was a peace officer.

2.      The defendant is convicted of murdering two or more individuals, whether the deaths were the result of one act or several acts, which the defendant knew would result in death or serious bodily harm.  This aggravating factor is meant to impose the death penalty for serial killings.

3.      The defendant committed a murder-for-hire.

4.      The victim was under 12 years of age or over 60 years of age, and the death resulted from exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior.

5.      The murder was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner according to a preconceived plan, scheme or design.

6.      The murdered individual was subject to an order of protection issued against the defendant.

 

MITIGATING FACTORS

1.      The defendant has no significant history of prior criminal activity.

2.      The murder was committed while the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance.

3.      The victim consented to the homicidal conduct.

4.      The defendant acted under threat of infliction of death or great bodily harm to himself.

5.      The defendant was not personally present during the commission of the crime.

6.      The defendant’s background includes a history of emotional or physical abuse.

7.      The defendant suffers from reduced mental capacity.

Death Penalty – Jury Deliberation – Class Handout

 

Your group is a jury deciding whether the defendant in the case should be charged with the death penalty.  Your group will be engaging in a LEGAL deliberation, NOT a moral one!

 

1.      Read the Case Study

2.      Deliberate the sentence with your fellow jury members

    1. Identify the Aggravating Factors in the hypothetical.   

_____________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Identify the Mitigating Factors in the hypothetical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Do the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors or vice versa? Explain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.      Make a decision about whether to impose the death penalty.  Give your reasons for your decision.  To impose the death penalty, your group must unanimously agree.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Case Study #1 – Lesley Gosch*

 

The Crime

At approximately 2:30 on the afternoon of September 18, 1985, Frank Patton, president of Castle Hills National Bank in San Antonio, Texas, received a telephone call at the bank from his wife, Rebecca Patton. When he answered the phone his wife said, "Hi, Frank, there is someone here who wants to talk to you," and then a male voice, unfamiliar to Mr. Patton, took over the line. The unknown male instructed Mr. Patton to gather cash in a briefcase, in $50 and $100 bills, and go directly to the pay telephones at the food court at the North Star Mall in San Antonio and await further instructions. The caller told Mr. Patton that he had precisely 45 minutes to comply with these directions, or it would be "all over."

 

After hanging up the phone, Mr. Patton immediately directed a bank cashier to begin gathering the money, while his secretary called the F.B.I. Seven minutes after the initial extortion call, officers from the Alamo Heights Police Department arrived at the Patton home to find the body of Rebecca Patton lying on the floor. She had been shot fatally in the head.

 

After being informed of his wife's death, and accompanied by several agents from the F.B.I., Mr. Patton proceeded, briefcase in hand, to the North Star Mall. While plainclothes agents stationed themselves nearby, Mr. Patton waited by the pay telephones at the food court designated by the caller. After 40 minutes, however, no one had called or come to collect the money, and Mr. Patton was advised by the F.B.I. to return to the bank.

 

State and federal law enforcement agencies swiftly initiated an intensive investigation of Mrs. Patton's murder. The crime scene was secured, and the home was thoroughly searched for evidence. Seven .22 caliber cartridge casings, believed to be manufactured by an English company called the Eley Ammunition Company, were found in the home. In addition, at least one foreign hair and several unknown fingerprints were found in the residence and processed for identification.

 

The police also conducted a house-to-house canvass of the Pattons’ neighborhood

to determine if anyone had noticed anything unusual on the day of the crime. However, despite the impressive law enforcement resources devoted to investigating the case, the police were without significant leads several days after the crime.

 

The Suspect

On September 23, 1985, a group of San Antonio-area bankers held a press

conference to announce that they were offering a $100,000 reward for information

leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the murder of Mrs. Patton. Less than two days later, 21-year-old Stephen Hurst was brought to the Alamo Heights Police Department by his uncle, claiming that he had information that would lead to the arrest of the individuals responsible for the crime.

 

At the police station, Hurst produced a briefcase which he claimed had been given

to him for safekeeping by his friend and housemate, John Rogers. Inside police found a Ruger .22 caliber automatic handgun, several full boxes and one partially full box of Eley pistol ammunition, and two silencers which fit the weapon. A subsequent firearms comparison by the Bexar County Firearms Examiner concluded that this handgun was the murder weapon.

 

Hurst gave a written statement to the Alamo Heights police implicating his

roommate Rogers and a man named Lesley Gosch in the failed extortion plot and

subsequent murder of Mrs. Patton. According to Hurst’s statement, Rogers told him of a plan to obtain ransom money but that the plan had "gone sour" and that "Skipper (Gosch) emptied a clip into her." Rogers told Hurst that “Skipper went to the house with a big flower box with a gun inside it, he rang the door bell, she opened the door and he forced his way in. ”

 

After Hurst turned the briefcase over to the authorities, officers from several law

enforcement agencies acted quickly to secure warrants for the arrests of Rogers and Gosch, and for the search of the apartment of Rogers and Hurst.

 

The Trial

Following a change in the venue for the trial, the first phase (to determine guilt or  innocence) of Gosch's trial began in Victoria, Texas on August 26, 1986. The State's evidence was largely circumstantial. The fingerprints found at the crime scene did not match Gosch. Two witnesses testified that Gosch had told them that he owned a .22 caliber pistol. Other witnesses testified to conversations with Gosch indicating his fear of serving time on a pending federal firearms charge, and one witness said that he had bought the .22 Ruger for Gosch approximately a year before the murder.

 

Finally, the co-defendant, John Rogers, testified to many of the details outlined above and alleged that Mr. Gosch was the one who had entered the Patton household and shot Mrs. Patton, and that it was all part of a scheme to raise a large sum of money to finance Gosch's escape to Belize. Rogers admitted giving the briefcase containing a number of guns, including the .22 Ruger, to Stephen Hurst, and acknowledged that Hurst knew about, and at one time was going to participate in, the extortion plan.

 

The defense presented no witnesses at this phase of the trial. The jury returned a

verdict of guilty against Mr. Gosch. The punishment phase of the trial began the next day.

 

The prosecution presented testimony alleging various prior offenses committed by

Gosch which had never been submitted to a trial, and offered judgments of his earlier convictions. The defense presented only two witnesses on Gosch's behalf: his adoptive father, Wesley Gosch, and a former co-worker, Preston Knodell, who had known Gosch for four years. Gosch, himself, did not testify.

 

Meet the victim

Rebecca Patton lived with her husband, Frank Patton, and her two children. She had been married for 17 years. Mr. Patton was president of the Castle Hills National Bank in San Antonio. Mrs. Patton was very active and well-known in the local community.

 

Regarding the death penalty for Gosch, Mrs. Patton’s daughter remarked that it

was not about revenge, but about justice. “This man took a life. He took a lot of things. My mom was a lot of things to a lot of people. He took her away from a lot of people and left a big hole in a lot of people’s lives as well as deprived her of the pleasure of living.”

 

Meet the defendant

Lesley Gosch was a former Eagle Scout. He was 29 years old at the time of the crime. Gosch had pleaded guilty a month earlier to charges of manufacturing and selling gun silencers. Gosch was facing sentencing for this earlier federal firearms conviction and the prosecution maintained that he sought the ransom money for a flight to Belize, Central America, to avoid being incarcerated. He also had previous convictions for a pair of pharmacy robberies in San Antonio.

 

Due to injuries Gosch sustained in an accident as a teenager, he would have had a

hard time carrying out his role in the offense. As a result of the accident, Gosch lost one of his eyes and his eyesight was so poor in the other eye that he was legally blind. Given this disability, it would have been difficult for Gosch to drive the victim from the crime scene. Moreover, Gosch also lost the distal phalanges of four of his fingers and the thumb on his left hand, as well as portions of the thumb and index finger of his right hand, from the accident. These disabilities would have made it extremely difficult for him to brandish a weapon with one hand while binding Mrs. Patton with the other.

 

Although little was presented at the sentencing phase of Gosch’s trial regarding

his background, the defense could have presented to the jury the picture of a physically and emotionally abused child who nevertheless attempted to, and at times succeeded in, achieving in his academic endeavors; of a boy who hated violence and seeing animals killed; of a young man who was not a leader but a follower, and who was struggling to overcome the effects of an overbearing father and a traumatic injury; of an adult man who had the intellectual and spiritual faculties to make that struggle a success.

 

The witnesses who provided the information necessary to put together that life history include numerous members of Gosch's extended family who were never contacted by the defense. Moreover, it appears that counsel failed to review potentially mitigating records. Records from the 1977 hospitalization following the explosion in Gosch’s home offer significant information about the struggles and successes he experienced while coping with his injuries. Excerpts from those same records show Gosch's consistent attendance at the therapy sessions five, six and seven years after counseling was ordered in conjunction with a probationary sentence resulting from his only prior conviction.

 

Repeatedly, the notations from those sessions show Gosch's honest attempts to confront the issues and dilemmas presented to him and to reflect on his own life and behavior. For no apparent reason, however, defense counsel failed to present this evidence to the jury.


Case Study #2 - Kenneth Junior French*

 

The Crime

On the night of August 6, 1993, a man stepped out of a truck near Luigi’s Restaurant and the Kroger supermarket in Cumberland County, North Carolina. The man carried a pump shotgun and was wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a hunting vest. A witness stated that there appeared to be a bottle of beer in his hunting vest. The man suddenly began firing in the direction of the Kroger store. He then walked to the back of the restaurant and entered through the kitchen area.

 

He then went to the restaurant proper, hollering “freeze.” Patrons began running

out the door and hiding under the tables. The man walked through the restaurant and killed four people and wounded numerous others, often firing right in people’s faces after they asked for mercy.

 

A Fayetteville police officer who was working as an off-duty guard for Kroger’s,

heard the shots and, after calling for backup, entered the restaurant and shot the man holding the gun. When another officer approached, the man with the gun raised it and the officer fired twice. Finally, an officer removed the shotgun and placed the man under arrest. He was taken to a hospital for surgery.

 

The Suspect

There was little doubt about who had committed the crime. The man who was arrested at the scene of the crime was Kenneth Junior French, a 22-year-old mechanic in the Army, who had obtained the rank of Sergeant E-5. He had recently moved into a trailer rented by his fiancée, Elaine Sears, and her two children. At the time of the crime, Ms. Sears and her children were out of state.

 

The Trial

The defendant was charged with four counts of first degree murder, eight counts of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of discharging a firearm into an occupied building. The defendant pleaded not guilty to all counts. After a request by the defendant ’s appointed attorney, the trial was moved to New Hanover County.

 

Jury selection in the case began on February 14, 1994 and the guilt-or-innocence

phase of the trial was completed by the end of March. The jury then deliberated for two and a half days and returned a verdict of guilty of four counts of first degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation, guilty of three counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, guilty of four counts of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and guilty of other lesser counts.

 

The jury was then presented with testimony relaying aggravating and mitigating evidence. The aggravating evidence attempted to show that the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; that the defendant knowingly created a risk of death to more than one person; and that the murder was part of a course of conduct which included other crimes of violence against other persons. The mitigating evidence is presented in the section about the defendant below.

 

Meet the victims

Willie McCormick, a cook in the restaurant, was the first person shot when he tried to walk away from the defendant. He did not die.

 

Pete Parrous, the proprietor of the restaurant, approached the man and asked him not to hurt anyone. He was shot in the face and died instantly. As Mr. Parrous fell to the ground, his wife, Ethel Parrous, stood up screaming. She was killed and fell by her daughter, Connie Kotsopoulos, who began screaming and was shot in the thigh.

 

Wesley Cover, who had been tending to a patron who had been hit by a pellet from the shooting, asked the man with the gun not to hurt the woman he was helping because she was pregnant. Mr. Cover was shot in the head and died quickly. The woman was also shot, but not fatally.

 

James Kidd was covering his son and hiding in a booth. The man shot Mr. Kidd, who died almost immediately. The son was not physically harmed. Other patrons were wounded in the incident.

 

Meet the defendant

The following facts about Kenneth French were presented to the jury considering his ultimate sentence:

 

On August 5, 1993 after work, Ken French went with three friends to several bars near Ft. Bragg, consuming a great deal of alcohol before returning to the barracks around 3 AM on August 6. French got up that morning around 9 AM. He visited some friends, played with their children, got a hair cut, rented some videos and returned to the trailer where he was living. He started watching TV and drinking beer. In particular, he watched a Clint Eastwood video, “The Unforgiven, ” imitating some of the drinking and shooting that was going on in the movie.

At one point, he called an old girl friend, who reported that he sounded strange.

He also called his mother in Florida, during which call he started crying and apologizing for not preventing the spousal abuse that he witnessed his father direct towards her. He also said he could have prevented the sexual abuse and rape of his sister by his father.

 

His mother was so concerned that she offered to come to console him, but he said he was all right.

 

Ken French has no further memory of the events that then transpired, other than he remembered putting guns into his truck and he remembered shooting an older woman.

 

French went from his trailer to a nearby party, where others reported that he drove erratically and that he was carrying several beers and a bottle of Wild Turkey and that he was hyperactive. He was overhead telling some children at the party to “shoot or kill” black people (using a pejorative term).

 

French continued acting strangely and alarmed those who saw him. He told a friend he wanted to go to a part of town frequented by blacks and that a black man had “raped his sister.”

 

Evidence presented during the penalty phase of the trial included information attempting to show that French had no significant history of prior criminal activity, that he was relatively young at the time of the crime, that he had a good reputation in the communities in which he lived, that he was a product of a violent and chaotic home, and that he accepted responsibility for the shootings.


The Outcome – for teacher use only

 

Case Study #1 – Lesley Gosch

 

Lesley Gosch was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.  His attorneys on appeal claimed that Gosch’s trial was unfair because witness Stephen Hurst had given the jury the false impression that he was not interested in the reward money when he testified.  They also maintained that the trial attorneys should have presented a stronger case that Gosch was not the shooter in this murder.  Gosch was executed on April 24, 1998.  He had no final statement and made no eye contact with Amy Grammer, the daughter of the woman he was convicted of killing.

 

After the trial, Stephen Hurst was paid the $100,000 reward offered by the banks.  John Rogers received a prison term of 45 years.

 

Case Study #2 – Kenneth Junior French

 

The jury deliberated for two and a half days to determine the sentence.  At that time, the jury reported that it was hopelessly deadlocked.  They unanimously found the existence of two aggravating factors (risk of death to more than one person, and murder in the course of violent conduct).  They were able to agree that the mitigating evidence did not outweigh the aggravating evidence, but were unable to agree on whether French should be sentenced to death.  Upon determining that the jury was deadlocked, the court imposed a sentence of four consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murders, and additional time to be served consecutively for the other offenses.

 

French filed notice of appeal and remains incarcerated in North Carolina.

 

 

 

 

 

©Copyright 2005 Citizen Advocacy Center.  All rights reserved.  No part of this lesson plan may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior, written permission of the Citizen Advocacy Center. The Citizen Advocacy Center is a 501(c)(3) non-pofit, non-partisan community based legal organization. For information about the Center, or to make a tax deductible contribution, visit www.citizenadvocacycenter.org, call 630.833.4080. The Center is located at 238 N. York Rd., Elmhurst IL 60126

 

 


* Case studies attained from Michigan State University and the Death Penalty Information Center.

* Case studies attained from Michigan State University and the Death Penalty Information Center.