Term Paper Assignment: Individual Rights and Social Order

Over the course of the term, this course has focused on the concepts of Individual Rights as protected under the Bill of Rights, as well as the role of the legal systems and its unrelenting pursuit of Social Order. Each concept balances the other to ensure that rules, institutions, and public initiatives can be executed in a standardized and judicious manner for the benefit of a civilized society.

Review the following in preparation to follow a systematic approach to your synthesis of law and fact:

• Champion, D. J., Hartley, R. D., & Rabe, G.A. (2012). Chapter 1 Law: The Legal Battlefield. In Criminal courts: Structure, process, and issues (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Write a ten to fifteen page paper in which you:

1. Explain the difference in individual rights and social order, and examine the major effects of both on the legal system overall.

2. Choose one of the social controls discussed within Chapter 1, and give your opinion as to the amendment which offers the most protection of the social control that you selected. Address whether the chosen Amendment is simply an instrument of protection to ensure that the rights and liberties of citizens are secure, whether it provides a framework to facilitate citizen / governmental interactions, or both. Explain the answer.

3. Discuss the essentials ways in which the law effectuates social change in American society through judicial activism. Provide a rationale for the response.

4. Examine the overall importance of both substantive law and procedural law. Suggest three ways in which these two types of laws can protect both individual rights and social order. Discuss the invaluable aspects of substantive and procedural in keeping the adversarial system in balance while protecting individual rights and social order. Justify the response.

5. Analyze the key differences between criminal law, civil law, and administrative law. Discuss the role of each when criminal and administrative law or civil and administrative law intersects in the litigation process.Propose two ways in which these three types of laws protect individual rights and social order. Justify the response.

6. Review the three functions of law. Explain the essential manner in which the law overall ensures the existence of adequate order, provides resolutions to conflicts, and protects civil liberties (e.g., freedom of thought, belief, expression, and assembly; protection against unreasonable searches and seizures; and provisions for a court hearing prior to government taking of property) as set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

7. Debate whether or not social control(s), as a function of law, play a fundamentally positive/creative role or negative / restrictive role in the development of modern American law. Provide a rationale for the response.

8. Use at least two quality references. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not quality as academic resources.