Posted on 03/24/2006 4:03:39 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Jones and his family were under marshals' protection in December.
In the days after U.S. Judge John E. Jones III issued his decision in Dover's intelligent design case, outraged people sent threatening e-mails to his office.
Jones won't discuss details of the e-mails, or where they might have come from, but he said they concerned the U.S. Marshals Service.
So, in the week before Christmas, marshals kept watch over Jones and his family.
While no single e-mail may have reached the level of a direct threat, Jones said, the overall tone was so strident, marshals "simply determined the tenor was of sufficient concern that I ought to have protection."
"They decided to err on the side of caution," he said.
Jones, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, decided to speak publicly about the e-mails this week in light of recent reports about threats of violence against federal judges. He said statements made by "irresponsible commentators and political figures" have gotten so extreme that he fears tragedy.
"We're going to get a judge hurt," he said.
Jones pointed to a Sunday New York Times article about U.S. Supreme Court justices speaking of the recent threats.
The article concerned a speech in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed details of an Internet death threat targeting her and recently retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
A February 2005 posting on an Internet chat site addressing unnamed "commandos" said: "Here is your first patriotic assignment. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."
In another speech this month, the Times said in the same article, Justice O'Connor addressed comments made last year in the Terri Schiavo case by Rep. Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn, both Texas Republicans.
Cornyn hinted after the judge's decision that such rulings could lead to violence.
"It builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence," Cornyn said. "Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have."
'It saddens you'
Jones is also concerned with a statement uttered recently by conservative pundit Ann Coulter regarding Justice John Paul Stevens' past votes upholding Roe v. Wade.
At a speech in Little Rock, Ark., this month, Coulter was quoted as saying, "We need somebody to put rat poison in Justice Stevens' crème brulee."
Jones said such remarks could fuel irrational acts by misguided individuals thinking they're being patriotic.
"There is an element here that is acting like it is open season on judges," Jones said.
"It saddens me that it's come to the point, where we're talking about what ought to be an honest disagreement, then you heighten it to something that is darker and much more disturbing."
Last year, Pinellas County, Fla., Circuit Judge George Greer and his family were under the protection of armed guards because of death threats over his ruling to allow Michael Schiavo to remove the feeding tube from his wife, who doctors determined was in a persistent vegetative state.
And 13 months ago in Illinois, U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow's husband and her mother were killed, both shot in the head. Authorities determined that their killer was a disgruntled, unemployed electrician who was a plaintiff in a medical malpractice suit that Lefkow dismissed.
This is the first time Jones, who was appointed to the federal bench in August 2002, has availed himself of marshal protection.
But he said most federal judges who have spent enough time on the bench will need security at least once in their careers.
"It doesn't anger you," he said. "It saddens you. The reason I chose to talk about it now is that attacks on judges have really gone beyond the pale."
An attempt to educate
In a 139-page opinion [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Jones ruled that intelligent design was not science but merely repackaged creationism, which courts had previously ruled should not be taught in science classes. Jones struck down Dover Area School Board's curriculum policy that required biology students to hear a statement that told them "intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Charles Darwin's view."
And he referred to the "breathtaking inanity" of the school board's decision. "The students, parents and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."
While most judges are reticent, Jones said he's opted to use his recent exposure - Wired News named him one of 2005's top 10 sexiest geeks - to educate the public about judicial independence.
In the wake of his decision, the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute dubbed him "an activist judge."
And conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly chided him for going against the wishes of fundamentalist Christians.
"Judge John E. Jones III could still be chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board if millions of evangelical Christians had not pulled the lever for George W. Bush in 2000," Schlafly wrote less than two weeks after the decision. "Yet this federal judge, who owes his position entirely to those voters and the president who appointed him, stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District."
Jones, a Republican who received the judicial endorsement of Pennsylvania conservative Sen. Rick Santorum, said he anticipated such reaction, but "I didn't know what corner it would come from."
People who hurl such accusations don't understand the role of an independent judge, he said. A judge's responsibility is not to interpret the desires of a political base. Rather, it is to interpret the law based on existing legal precedent.
He said decisions can't be determined by political affiliations. They must be made without bias.
"Had I ignored existing precedent," he said, "that would have been the work of an activist judge."
Discovery Institute, an organization championing intelligent design, has released a book critical of U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III's ruling in Dover's intelligent design lawsuit.
The book, "Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision" dissects Jones' December decision, in which he ruled intelligent design was creationism posing as science.
Intelligent design is the idea that the complexity of life demands a creator.
The book, which is 15 pages shorter than Jones' 139-page opinion, is written by Casey Luskin, a Discovery attorney, and Discovery fellows David K. DeWolf, John G. West and Jonathan Witt.
The writers argue that Jones' decision was the work of "an activist judge" and that he ignored the science behind intelligent design.
The book is priced at $14.95 and is available at bookstores throughout the country and online at Amazon.com. It also can be ordered directly by calling 800-643-4102.
Why the heck would anyone go through the trouble to get two Ph.Ds in biology?!
Jones won't discuss details of the e-mails, or where they might have come from, but he said they concerned the U.S. Marshals Service.
So, in the week before Christmas, marshals kept watch over Jones and his family.
While no single e-mail may have reached the level of a direct threat, Jones said, the overall tone was so strident, marshals "simply determined the tenor was of sufficient concern that I ought to have protection."
"They decided to err on the side of caution," he said.
Doesn't sound like mere "criticism" of Judge Jones' opinion is at issue here.
I wasn't referring to his papers, I was referring to the peer reviewed paper of Meyer's that Sternberg, as Managing Editor of that scientific journal published. I listed Sternberg's papers as a counter to the seeming insinuation that he probably was not a real scientist, or probably just a consultant. That's one peer-reviewed article, which enough to disprove the contention that there are "no peer reviewed" articles. Is it any wonder that there is a paucity of expressly ID peer reviewed articles? Look at what happens when there is an overt ID article by brand name published. The Holy Office goes into hyper drive.
Cordially,
Those are fair and legitimate questions, with which I have no disagreement.
Cordially
Should the existence of a conspiracy that suppresses the publication of ID articles in scientific journals be part of the standard high school biology curriculum?
No one has disputed Sternberg's competence. They have disputed his judgement in publishing a paper that would likely have been rejected by the typical review process.
He slipped one past while no one was looking. A betrayal of trust.
No one can prevent essays on ID from being published. And if, if fifty years, they turn out to be significant, that will be the judgement of history. But you don't make friends by sneaking behind their backs.
See #83 and #84.
Cordially,
Creationism has to go if conservatism is to make any progress. It's to conservatism what Howard Dean is to liberalism.
I think he substantiates his argument that it was well within the bounds of a typical review process.
He slipped one past while no one was looking. A betrayal of trust.
Trust in what? It doesn't make any sense to say he "slipped one past" anybody unless there really is some sort of formal or informal Darwinian "orthodox censor" to be slipped past.
Cordially,
With all due respect, that reminds me of the type of question Larry King would ask.
Cordially,
On what basis? It didn't break any laws?
If it had gone through the customary review process it would have been rejected.
Yep. Particularly apt, but coincidental.
Ironically, Larry King apparently actually once asked a scientist on his show, "If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes..." [paraphrasing] That's more like a question Larry King would ask.
I would like to see documentation of the pressure put on NIH to fire him.
In any case it is a legitimate question. If ID is an equally valid theory as evolution, and should be given equal consideration in a biology classroom, don't students deserve to be given thorough information about that conspiracy that keeps this grandiose theory from obtaining equal footing with evolution in the science community??
She seemed to be somewhat of a nutball back in the 1960s.
I don't believe von Sternberg sent it through the customary review process. The style and content is completely alien to the journal in which it was published; it's polemic, not science; it contains no new data; and parts of it are just wrong. Von Sternberg is hiding behind reviewer anonymity.
BTW, reviewer anonymity really applies only to reviewers and authors. The identity of the reviewers could be revealed to the editorial board, as long as they themselves promised to keep the reviewers' names anonymous.
Signed, the man who types with his thumbs. :-)
I thought what he meant was that since so many in the government have ACCEPTED social Darwinism, that said bureaucrats feel it is their noble duty to use the full force of liberal government to shield the weak from what would otherwise be their sad fate.
The whole liberal version of noblesse oblige, in fact.
Sorry I haven't been on the threads making inane non sequiturs lately, I've been on other website breathlessly and apprehensively following H5N1.
Talk about your survival of the fittest--in humans, at least, H5N1 appears to be a counterexample, like the 1918 flu epidemic. Freepmail me for details. :-(
Arthur C. Clarke has oft been quoted as saying, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." (Your mileage may vary according to the Google site you choose .)
I would say the following are the main contributors to those who endlessly rail against evolution, or call it a Satanic / Marxist plot, the percentages vary from thread to thread:
non-scientifically trained, never read about it
deeply religiously motivated, didn't WANT to read about it
deeply religiously motivated, read unreliable sources
total nutcases / trolls / DU trojan horse types
people who really are evolutionists but are just making fun of creationists by imitating them
Any other thoughts?
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