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.
Science has become as "fundamentalist" as it claims the supporters of Creationism are.
Your words only reinforce my conviction.
Maybe one day new ideas will be accepted by scientists, they were before, but for now its "evolution or else."
Click the boot heels and salute. "Hail Evolution."
How silly of us to infer from this a blanket condemnation of science.
What makes you think ID is opposed to evolution? Behe, the main expert witness for the defense at Dover, accepts common descent, as does Denton, the author of "Evolution: A Theory In Crisis".
ID is not an alternative to common descent, and it is no comfort to those who wish to read Genesis as literal history.
I'm not here to talk about what's "religion" and what's not.
Freedom is my idea and all ideas need to be heard. The anti-ID people seem to be in the censorship business, that's my point.
Thanks for the warning. I like your homepage.
Yeah, if one's "disagreement" contains insults against Christians, then accusations of attacking Christians are likely to follow. Posters on this thread have aleady compared Christians to Islamists for (allegedly) sending heated emails to a judge. A far cry from sawing a man's head off, I think. Myself, I think there are a few who use this issue (that ID is a threat) to create conflict among conservatives, quite on purpose. These threads, allegedly posted to discuss science, have a multi website reputation for being an open forum for bashing Christians.
What I find personally very funny is how those who don't agree with Darwin's theory 110% is labeled a "creationist" even if they find creationism to be rather silly.
That creationist canard reminds me of Cartman asking "if dolphins are so smart, why do they live in igloos?"
I haven't seen any attacks on Christians yet. Can you point me in the right direction? It seems, rather, that simply challenging an ID proponent to PROVE their case is what brings the accustaions.
Posters on this thread have aleady compared Christians to Islamists for (allegedly) sending heated emails to a judge. A far cry from sawing a man's head off, I think.
And posters on this thread have also compared evolution-believers to Nazis for (simply) requiring proof, the classic science-stickler. A far cry from exterminating millions of people, I think.
Myself, I think there are a few who use this issue (that ID is a threat) to create conflict among conservatives, quite on purpose. These threads, allegedly posted to discuss science, have a multi website reputation for being an open forum for bashing Christians.
I think the conflict comes about because the basis of many conservatives' conservatism is reason (as opposed to feelings), and when we are accused of: censorship, Christian-bashing, being undercover-liberals, etc. simply for being CONSISTENT, conflict ensues. Again, please show me where Christian-bashing is taking place, and I will share your offense-taking.
What I find personally very funny is how those who don't agree with Darwin's theory 110% is labeled a "creationist" even if they find creationism to be rather silly.
What I find personally very funny is how those who can prove 0% of ID's position claim "victim status" and seek intellectual affirmative action, bestowing upon ID the vaunted positon of "theory" without a single relevant qualification.
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