Answer both of the following questions. Each answer is to be a four to six page formal essay (double spaced, normal margins and fonts, etc.) addressed to someone with familiarity with the required material for this course.

1. We have focused on four grand jurisprudential theories of the law -- natural law, legal positivism, legal realism, and law as integrity. Analyze these four theories in the context of the classic compare and contrast essay. I am anxious to see your views about the connections between these four theories, as well as those things that distinguish them. You are free to let your own assessment of these theories enter your discussion, but, I am looking for a more "neutral" expository stance in this essay. The easiest way to do this, in my judgment, is to adopt a very sympathetic and charitable perspective on all four of these theories for the purposes of this discussion.

2. Now is your opportunity to bring your own perspective into the discussion. Defend which ever of the above theories you believe is the most satisfactory account of law. I suspect that your analysis may include a discussion of the virtues of your preferred theory, as well as some of the deficiencies in the competing theories. I will not be surprised if your discussion does not devote equal attention to all four theories, but it is probably a bad strategy to completely ignore any of them.

Answer both of the following questions. Each answer is to be a four to six page formal essay (double spaced, normal margins and fonts, etc.) addressed to someone with only limited familiarity with the required material for this course.

This section of our course blends methodological issues about how legal texts -- particularly the Constitution -- should be interpreted with substantive questions about what our rights as citizens are. Both of the substantive issues -- privacy and capital punishment -- are complicated and controversial. They are also juicy examples of interpretive disputes.

1. Critically analyze the substantive and methodological issues in the Supreme Court’s privacy decisions [be sure to discuss Giswold, Roe, Casey, and Bowers]. Assume your reader has only limited understanding of both the methodological and substantive controversies. Try to be fair and complete, but feel free to defend your own views.

2. Critically analyze the substantive and methodological issues in the Supreme Court’s death penalty decisions [be sure to discuss Furman, Gregg, McCleskey, and Herrera ]. Assume your reader has only limited understanding of both the methodological and substantive controversies. Try to be fair and complete, but feel free to defend your own views.

OPTION ONE -- Answer both of the following questions. Each answer is to be a four to six page formal essay (double spaced, normal margins and fonts, etc.) addressed to someone with only limited familiarity with the required material for this course.

OPTION TWO -- Answer either of the following questions. Your answer is to be an eight to ten page formal essay (double spaced, normal margins and fonts, etc.) addressed to someone with only limited familiarity with the required material for this course.

1. Compare and contrast the forward-looking interpretations of tort law with the backward-looking interpretations. Which do you believe gets at the "heart" of torts? Defend your interpretation. Remember, your reader has very limited familiarity with this material.

2. After our investigation of tort law, which of the four "grand jurisprudential theories" that we explored in the first section of this course do you believe best accounts for the current state of torts. Justify your answer from both a jurisprudential perspective, and from your background with torts.