Posted on 06/05/2006 4:53:41 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
John E. Jones III is using the intelligent-design debate to answer his critics and talk about judicial independence.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III could have taken the safe route and retreated to the privacy of the courthouse after issuing his landmark ruling in December against intelligent design. Most judges are loath to go public about their cases at all, let alone respond to their critics.
But Jones - angered by accusations that he had betrayed the conservative cause with his ruling, and disturbed by the growing number of politically motivated attacks on judges in general - came out from his chambers swinging.
"I didn't check my First Amendment rights at the door when I became a judge," Jones said in a recent interview.
While keeping his normal caseload, Jones has embarked on a low-key crusade to educate the public about the importance of judicial independence. He has been flooded with more invitations than he can accept to speak to organizations and schools about issues that arose from the Dover, Pa., case on intelligent design and other emotionally charged cases.
Edward Madeira, a senior partner with Pepper Hamilton L.L.P., which represented Dover plaintiffs, described Jones as the perfect ambassador for a more visible judiciary.
"God bless him," said Madeira, who serves with Jones on a state panel on judicial independence. "He came out of the case with a real concern about the lack of understanding of the role of the judiciary and has become a person who spends time very effectively talking about it."
So far, Jones has delivered his message on at least 10 occasions, speaking to high schools and colleges, mostly in Pennsylvania. In February, he addressed the national conference of the Anti-Defamation League in Florida.
Jones had anticipated he would be targeted by hard-line conservatives after concluding that teaching intelligent design in public schools as an alternative to evolution was unconstitutional.
But he was surprised by how ignorant some of his critics were, in his view, about the Constitution and the separation of powers among the three branches of government.
Jones said he had no agenda regarding intelligent design but, rather, was taking advantage of the worldwide interest in the case to talk about constitutional issues important to him.
"I've found a message that resonates," he said. "It's a bit of a civics lesson, but it's a point that needs to be made: that judges don't act according to bias or political agenda."
One particularly strident commentary piece by conservative columnist Phyllis Schlafly, published a week after the ruling, really set Jones off.
Schlafly wrote that Jones, a career Republican appointed to the federal bench by President Bush in 2002, wouldn't be a judge if not for the "millions of evangelical Christians" who supported Bush in 2000. His ruling, she wrote, "stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District."
"The implication was that I should throw one for the home team," Jones said. "There were people who said during trial they could not accept, and did not anticipate, that a Republican judge appointed by a Republican president could do anything other than rule in the favor of the defendants."
Jones, 50, who is based in Williamsport, Pa., was finishing his second year on the court when he was assigned the Dover case.
Looking beyond that trial now, Jones said he was concerned about the growing number of politically motivated threats against judges, including himself, that demonstrate "a lack of respect and a lack of understanding of what we do."
He rattled off a string of incidents that occurred last year: The murder of a Chicago judge's husband and mother by a disgruntled litigant. The oral attacks - led by congressional Republicans - against a Florida judge who ruled that Terri Schiavo could be removed from her feeding tube. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter's suggestion that U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be given "rat poison" for voting to uphold Roe v. Wade. (Coulter later added it was only a joke.)
And an e-mail death threat that Jones received shortly after the Dover ruling caused him to seek U.S. Marshal's Service protection for the first time.
"Judges are really unnerved by this," Jones said. "My wife couldn't walk the dog without a marshal walking beside her in the days after case was decided."
He wants to remind audiences, he said, that the judicial branch was not designed to react to public opinion as the executive and legislative branches were.
"If a poll shows a majority of Americans think we should teach creationism in schools, we should just go with the flow?" he asked. "There's this messy thing called the Constitution we have to deal with."
Since his Dover ruling, Jones has returned to the routine on the federal bench. He stayed the execution of a murderer, sent a sex offender to prison to "ratchet down his libido," and is preparing for a white-collar criminal case that is sure to thrust him back into the national spotlight this fall.
Jones is scheduled to preside over what may be the largest tax-fraud case in U.S. history when Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and his son Timothy - already convicted in a separate fraud case - appear before him to face charges they evaded $300 million in taxes.
ONLINE EXTRA
Read Judge John E. Jones III's speech to the Anti-Defamation League via http://go.philly.com/jones
Yeah, but the federal constitution trumps the state constitution.
I'm not against private schools as such, but I'm appalled at what you want to do with them.
I have not provided a definition, per se. I have only said that intelligent design may be reasonably inferred in those cases where organized matter performs specific functions.
You have yet to demonstrate that your claims are scientific.
There are numerous examples in objective reality where matter has been purposefully organized by an intelligent being so that it performs a specific function. I have yet to see a "scientific" example demonstrating an entity by the name of "nature" (or any other name) that has done such things. So . . . my claim is essentially more scientific than yours, which remains either unexpressed or unsupportable scientifically.
So is it your own idea of "what has be learned about the world" that should, by law, enjoy exclusivity in the public domain? Talk about screening! Fade to black . . .
Why the personal insults? It has been my observation that declaring a poster boring does not make their argument go away.
Hopefully, my premise will be picked up by others. Hopefully those with more influence will publicize the idea that government schools are NOT and never will be religiously, politically, or culturally neutral. And,,,that government schools trash First Amendments rights every minute of every school day.
They are constitutionally legal when run by states, even if they are immoral
I have posted an excellent essay explaining why they are NOT constitutional on either a state or federal level. I am sorry you have not chosen to read it.
The reason there is so much hostility regarding evolution and ID is entirely due to the non-neutral religious, political, and cultural consequences. And,,,evolution is merely one of HUNDREDS of such topics.
Although you find it annoying, privatization of universal K-12 education is the only solution to these continual curriculum wars.
You know, we could make a pool out of this!
I, for one, would be happy with a more (even fully) privatized school system. However, in the present circumstances, is NOT a constitutional requirement, even in principle, that "government school[s] [...] be religiously, politically, [and] culturally neutral."
What is required is that they not either erect anything "like an establishment of religion," and that they not intentionally or gratuitously burden the free exercise of religion. However, it IS permissible to either advance or inhibit religion so long as this is not done as the purpose or intent of legislation or policy, and the effect of advancing or inhibiting religion is incidental to a valid secular purpose. (As to burdening free exercise, I believe there's the additional requirement that a reasonable accomodation is not available.)
These constitutional restrictions are not a guarantee of perfect neutrality. That would require positive (and, as you note, invariably unsuccessful) social engineering and extraordinary ideological tinkering.
Let's say, just for the sake of argument, even though I don't actually agree with this, that evolution really WAS "atheistic," or really WAS a doctrine of the "religion of secular humanism," or anything of the like. Now if this was ALL evolution was, then obviously it would be unconstitutional to teach it.
But evolution is also, as a simple and obvious matter of fact, whether you agree with it or not, a part of current science. Therefore, so long as schools teach it as science and because it's science, these other religious attributes it may have are entirely incidental to the valid secular purpose of teaching science in a science class.
So long as evolution is part of science, and is being taught as science, there's no remedy (nor should there be) for those whose religious free exercise may be burdened by other attributes that evolution has (or that they perceive it to have). Same (or so it should be) with blacks and Huck Finn, with Christian Scientists and the germ theory of disease, with Scientologists and references to psychoactive pharmacology and modern psychology, and on and on.
The consequences of scientific discovery are NOT religious, politically, or culturally neutral.
But apparently some folks object to some of the results of scientific investigations.
That has always been the case. It is their constitutional and human right to object, not only for themselves but for their children. In a system of compulsory attendance, compulsory tax funded, price-fixed, cartel, monopoly government schools there is little opportunity for parents to object.
It must be sad to fear reading the paper in the morning, or watching the science channels on TV, lest one see the new discoveries that have been made.
Likely it is very sad for them.
Maybe that's why some of the posters here have such an impermeable armor of willful and sullen disbelief when it comes to science, and do their best to avoid any exposure to it.
It is their constitutional right and human right to disbelieve and avoid exposure to science. This is true for themselves and for their children. Unfortunately in a system of price-fixed, cartel, monopoly, compulsory funded, and compulsory attendance government schools, government FORCES it upon them and their children. I call this a human rights violation. Since children are involved, it is child abuse.
Mine would be more accurate than, say, yours, yes. But I don't have to be consulted directly. Let science classes reflect the current concensus in science and that would be good enough for me.
That's Balkanization.
What's follows privatized schools? Enclaves? Segregated neighborhoods? Segregated states?
What then? Warfare between neighboring enclaves?
Great. Set humankind back 10,000 years while you're at it. Armed and warring city states are where civilization started, and it sounds like your plan might just head us back there.
If the muslims don't do it first.
In a free country.
"Yeah, but the federal constitution trumps the state constitution."
Not on education.
The home team, pinhead, expected you to rule in favor of robust and open debate--not to kowtow to the thugs of the ACLU.
It is not the fault of reality that it fails to conform to the religious or cultural ideals of others. It is not reasonable for an individual to claim religious persecution merely because reality contradicts their religious beliefs.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Government must not be an "idea" nanny.
It IS religious persecution to FORCE children into government building and have the government actively, deliberately, and maliciously undermine and destroy their religious traditions.
If their beliefs contract reality, it is sufficient enough for reality to smack them in the nose with consequences.
That's right. The ACLU dicatates what get taught in the schools and the federal judiciary executes their orders.
There was more freedom in Soviet schools.
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