I need help with an assignment drafting a paper about the death penalty for my Intro To Ethics course.

The assignment is: choose an area of applied ethics (I chose the death penalty. Research the main views out there on this topic. Explain, compare, and rate the strengths and weaknesses of these existing points of view. Then apply the ethical toolbox to the topic. Run the analysis and show what you come up with. Advocate for your conclusion.

The proposal has three parts:

1) what specific ethical issue in what general area of applied ethics are you tackling?

2) why did you pick this topic? What is your own interest in it? Tell me why it is important enough to you for you to want to turn in a paper on it.

3) research directions: what sources have you already looked at? which ones have you identified which you have not had time to look into yet? what sort do you expect to need?