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.
His decision was entirely correct.
and citing a precedent doesn't make it right.
No, what makes it right is the fact that it was the correct decision based on the evidence which was presented before the court.
A strange system that encourages fraud, guarantees that it will be caught, and destroys the career of those caught.
Oh well, we can't all have the grasp of reality that mathematicians have.
But I thought Intelligent Design wasn't about religion.
Bingo. The creationists keep trying to swear that "Intelligent Design" isn't just a trojan horse for religion -- until you disagree with them on it, then they scream about how you're attacking Christians/Christianity/God etc... Yeah, pull the other leg now.
Funding for stem-cell research skyrocketed after the false data was announced. So plenty of scientists are living off of the blood money of blatantly fraudulent research. Nice.
Boy, you are quick with the straw men too. This is why you guys really don't understand what you are doing. I contend that experimental science is (1) intellectually deficient (2) frequently fraudulent (3) subject to a herd mentality (4) insular, unwilling to consider theory to be the solution to practice (5) unfocused (6) unable to acknowledge its own flaws.
I, of course, didn't say "all science is junk," but I suppose you had to cast it in terms that you were able to understand.
Huh.
Could you please quantify "frequently", and document the claim?
"Boy, you are quick with the straw men too."
No, it's actually your stated position, You have no been shy about your feelings toward science.
"I contend that experimental science is (1) intellectually deficient (2) frequently fraudulent (3) subject to a herd mentality (4) insular, unwilling to consider theory to be the solution to practice (5) unfocused (6) unable to acknowledge its own flaws."
Further support for my position.
"I, of course, didn't say "all science is junk," but I suppose you had to cast it in terms that you were able to understand."
You didn't have to.
"You have no been shy..."
Should be *You have not been shy...*.
You should learn the difference between "imply" and "infer".
And the whole deal with "assume".
Interesting failure to understand a conditional statement.
Don't need your help, I post primarily for the lurkers and, as a foil, you're a bit of a dud.
Here's a freebie for you: I don't plan to respond to your next post to me.
"You should learn the difference between "imply" and "infer".
And the whole deal with "assume"."
As should you.
Greens get caught red-handed committing scientific fraud.
http://www.junkscience.com/
"THIS YEAR something quite unprecedented has happened in the world of physics. In two separate, highly respected research laboratories, senior researchers were dismissed for publishing faked results." (Socialist Party magazine, BTW)
Now I will admit that the worst perpetrators of hoaxes and junk science are in climatology and public health. But when areas who make insane, overblown, unrealistic claims then get themselves in one of the biggest frauds in recent years, we are leaving the realm of science and entering a huge con game.
I post primarily for the lurkers
And 9 out of 10 lurkers so appreciate your pearls of wisdom.
as a foil, you're a bit of a dud.
I suspect this means that you are used to making ad hominem attacks. So sorry to disappoint.
Now, I would have expected a bit of wordplay with the word "foil". The word is actually a metaphor coming from fencing. But the word "conducive", for example, would avoid mixing the metaphors as the blade is metal. Failing that, most people would think of aluminum foil, which still works. Oh, well, not every poster can be clever.
I don't plan to respond to your next post to me.
And the cries of lament can be heard echoing throughout the land.
The old school board also voted out the football coach when he got convicted of DUI and the new one reinstated him.
Hundreds of people get upset when sports is disrupted in their local communities, too. Parents and other sports boosters will crowd school board meeting when a coach or
sports program is involved.
The media has its spin, but the more I think about it, ID is only one reason the school board changed last fall. The media propaganda campaign of negative publicity also helped.
All the voters made sure of was that a liberal, tax and spend union-backed school board was elected. They'll be seeing the bill this summer. There was no tax increase last year, but now the "fun" begins.
Watch that "God" thing, Patrick Henry. The ACLU may be monitoring.
The decision was, of course, one against the real meaning of the First Amendment, freedom of speech and religion. The 1987 Supreme Court precedent was, too.
Personally, what I believe now about God and society has changed over the years, but not my fundamental belief that all sides need to be heard. Dover wanted a disclaimer card read in a ninth grade science class. How evil!
Science is not an exercise in humanism and or "concrete" theory like evolution. The insistence on evolution only is as dogmatic as any fundamentalist preacher saying "don't drink, smoke, chew, or go out with girls who do." You may say its a fact or the truth, but the Fundamentalist has a right to his belief, too, that he thinks to be the truth.
When Darwin first "emerged", both points of view got a hearing. Now the liberal, politically correct media and academia, not to mention the ACLU, are literally cracking down on ideas they find wrong and I guess carrying you along with them.
This may bother you, but I stand for the free discussion of ideas, humanist and "religious" and that religious theories are OK in science classes. These ideas were allowed in the public schools I attended in the 1970's.
"Fundmantalist Scientists" seems to me a good way to describe the advocates of evolution-only science. Dogmatic and intolerant. Hey, look, I've heard a lot of preachers say a lot of crazy things over the years that I wouldn't agree with but we can choose not to believe them and move on.
I would never deny you the right to speak your view, but you must stop trying to censor other people's ideas in science classes. What scientists believe has "evolved" to where it is today and will "evolve" in the future to new beliefs, if you have the ability to allow it.
But, but... ID isn't supposed to be about religion or God....
The ID proponents weren't lying to me when they said that, were they??!!
"Dover wanted a disclaimer card read in a ninth grade science class."
The school board, and the law firm that convinced them to introduce the ID measures, wanted a lawsuit to so they could get a test case. It was all planned.
"When Darwin first "emerged", both points of view got a hearing."
And creationism lost in science. The *controversy* has not existed in science about evolution in well over a hundred years.
"This may bother you, but I stand for the free discussion of ideas, humanist and "religious" and that religious theories are OK in science classes."
But they aren't science.
"I would never deny you the right to speak your view, but you must stop trying to censor other people's ideas in science classes."
The science teachers ALL were opposed to teaching ID in the Dover case.
"What scientists believe has "evolved" to where it is today and will "evolve" in the future to new beliefs, if you have the ability to allow it."
I want nothing more than to have science go where the data and the facts lead it. ID, however, is not science, has never been science, and never will be as long as it posits an untestable *designer* that does untestable things in an unexplainable way. ID is a gutless choice for chumps who are too scared to do real science and get their hands dirty with real work. Real science is hard; ID is easy, all you have to say when you reach an impasse is *God did it*, oops I mean, the *Designer did it* and you are done.
What ID/creationism proponents want is a government enforced affirmative action program to get their decidedly unscientific ideas introduced into science classrooms. They have to lie and perjure themselves( as the Dover school board did) to do so. The biggest lie is that ID has nothing to do with religion. If that were so, why do ID proponents always whine about religious intolerance and anti-christian bigotry when ID is attacked by scientists?
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