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PS 221 Final Exam Spring 2020 (Assignment # 3) Instructions and Essay Options: 

 

1. Instructions:

You will have Three (3) essay question options for this final exam (Assignment # 3).  Please respond to only one (1) of them. Your response to the question you select cannot exceed 1000 words. Please clearly identify the question you have chosen. After drafting your response, include a bibliography (any style is fine) listing all the sources you used to develop your response.  You are expected to use at least four scholarly references from the Textbook or the weekly ‘Suggested Readings’ to support the arguments in your essay response. You may also use an ‘outside’ scholarly reference. Please provide a full citation to this reference so that I can quickly find and review it.  You should make use of these scholarly references as in-text citations in the body of your essay.

Any in-text citations, bibliography, or repetition of the question wording, to identify your essay choice, will not count against the word limitation. This Final Exam (Assignment # 3) is worth 30 points. The focus on this Final Exam (Assignment # 3) is the material we have covered in this course from Week # 1-Week # 10. The Final Exam (Assignment # 3) should be submitted to the Assignment # 3 Drop Box area no later than 11:59 pm on Tuesday, June 9.

 

1. Essay Question Options:
2. In his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings, Chief Justice Roberts noted that:

“Judges and Justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everyone plays by the rules. But it is a limited role”.

—–First, Discuss whether you agree or disagree with Chief Justice Roberts’ assessment of the role that Supreme Court Justices and trial court judges play in deciding criminal or civil cases.

—-Second, comment on why you believe Chief Justice Roberts felt that this baseball analogy was an appropriate response during his Senate confirmation hearing before a panel composed of veteran attorneys and politicians.

—-Third, comment on whether the recent U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings support Chief Justice Robert’s perception or whether they lead you to question this perception of the role of judges.

2. American Courts Explained presents policy and practice issues with respect to the criminal court process and the civil court process. What were the most troubling aspects of the criminal and civil court process? What reforms would you suggest to improve the operation of the criminal and civil courts in the United States (please be as specific as possible in outlining your reform ideas)?
3. The American civil and criminal courts have sometimes been portrayed as overly complex, wildly too expensive and frustratingly time-consuming systems for administering justice where litigants and defendants are merely pawns in a process dominated and controlled by lawyers. To what degree do lawyers ‘control’ the court process? Is some level of ‘control’ both necessary and beneficial to achieving justice for all parties or does this ‘control’ simply work to reinforce and perpetuate the power of the legal community?

 

Extra Credit Option:

You may create your own question. The question may address any aspect of the material we have covered in the PS 221 course.  Your response should be limited to no more than 300 words. You need to provide at least two academic references to support your question response.  It is possible to secure up to 3 extra credit points based on the quality of both the question proposed and the response to this question.

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