cross-cultural & historical breadth research paper on capital punishment

I have to write a research paper on Capital Punishment for my Law and Society class. I've never wrote this kind of paper before so it would be great if anyone could help me out.

It has to be around 20 pages

i need to have an outline and annotated bib a week from tomorrow done.

and i have to do a historical breadth/overview on capital punishment and also analyze it cross-culturally.

my teacher is crazy and he grades really hard so this paper has to be really good, its 40% of my final grade.

outline: (rough draft)

1. intro with thesis statement (i'm personally against the death penalty)
2. history of the death penalty
3. worldwide use of the death penalty
4. costs of putting a criminal on death penalty
5. alternatives to the use of the death penalty
6. effectiveness of the death penalty
7. arguments against
8. arguments for
9. case examples
10. conclusion with restatement of thesis

^^this is just a rough outline, please let me know if i should add more or switch some topics around or change anything. also if anyone could help me with my thesis..i'm never any good at them.

thanks so much for all the help.

How specific are you planning on going into the worldwide use of the death penalty? The reason I ask is because to do that you would have to define its use among 50

US states which each has their own procedure for it (i.e. what cases are appropriate if any, ability for parole/appeals, limits for prosecution and so forth) plus other nations, that is a lot of material, if you plan on doing that tho I suggest putting the arguments for and against based off the needs of that state/nation (think maybe about how high crime rates are, what percentage of crime rates are rape/murder/serial murder, each state's/nation's individual cost for prosecution and holding the inmates, etc) generalizing might get you deduction in points only because the differences among protocols for states alone is numerous. This depth of detail might get you about 20 if not more pages.