Describe and evaluate Natural Law theories of the law

Describe and evaluate Natural Law theories of the law

Answer all of the following questions. You may draw on course readings, lectures, and internet sources but DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. If you draw on materials from other sources you may either footnote and cite the sources, or, if it is a direct quotation, always put it within quotation marks and footnote and cite the sources. Please submit your typed, double-spaced answer in class on Wednesday, March 16th.

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Theories of Law – please write a few paragraphs in answer to each question in Section I.

Describe and evaluate Natural Law theories of the law. Using specific examples explain what are some positive aspects of this approach and what are some negative ones? Provide your own evaluative conclusion explaining and defending your position.

Describe and evaluate H.L.A. Hart’s Positivist theory of the law. How does legal positivism differ from natural law theory? Using specific examples explain what are some favorable aspects of this approach and some negative ones. Provide your own evaluative conclusion explaining and defending your position.

Considering some problems with natural law theory and positive law theory, does Dworkin’s idea of “integrity” bridge the gap between natural law and positivism? What are some features of the “integrity” approach? Provide your own description and evaluation.

Judicial Reasoning and Theories of the Law: Answer the following questions writing about a page or two for each. Identify those portions of the decision, if any, that are based on a) the four-corners rule, b) Originalism (textual or the Framer’s Intent), c) Sociological Jurisprudence (public policy), and d) precedent (stare decisis). In each case provide your reasons for your answer and in doing so explain the type of judicial reasoning.

From Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973):
The principal thrust of appellant’s attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal “liberty” embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment‘s Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972); id. at 460 (WHITE, J., concurring in result); or among those rights reserved to the people by the Ninth Amendment, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring). Before addressing this claim, we feel it desirable briefly to survey, in several aspects, the history of abortion, for such insight as that history may afford us, and then to examine the state purposes and interests behind the criminal abortion laws.

Identify the types of judicial reasoning found in this selection and provide an explanation for your answers.

How do you think that Catherine MacKinnon (Feminist Legal Theory) evaluates this decision? Support your answer. In your answer provide a description and evaluation of Feminist Legal Theory. (Hints: Consider the conflicts between privacy and equality as well as those between public and private.)

From U.S. Supreme Court, Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 19 How. 393 393 (1856)

Upon a writ of error to a Circuit Court of the United States, the transcript of the record of all the proceedings in the case is brought before the court, and is open to inspection and revision.

A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

…When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its “people or citizens.” Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being “citizens” within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.

What type of legal reasoning to you think is used here and why? How do you think Derrick Bell would evaluate this decision? Support your answer. Provide a description and evaluation of Critical Legal Theory (CLS).

Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground, and Duty to Retreat:

In 2013 George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder charges in the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin on the basis of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Yet in August 2010 Marissa Alexander was found guilty of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing a warning shot, and was sentenced to 20 years in jail. The jury deliberated for just 15 minutes in a verdict that seems to be contrary to the “Castle Doctrine” – a less extreme form of Stand Your Ground.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html

Drawing on the assigned readings including those by Catherine MacKinnon (FTL) Derrick Bell (CLS) and Kimberlé Crenshaw (CRF) evaluate this case.