[antiRepublicrat]

Don't you guys ever see that your arguments are completely transferable?

Absolutely not. Condensed: A judge decided a case and did a common thing when writing the decision. Notice in the article, "was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU's proposed 'Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law' submitted to Jones..." The text was proposed, and the judge mostly accepted, as is common practice. Nothing shady here, no intent to deceive, all perfectly straightforward and on record.

Note that if you dig down into the DI's own report, you will see this little disclaimer:

Proposed “findings of fact” are prepared to assist judges in writing their opinions, and judges are certainly allowed to draw on them. Indeed, judges routinely invite lawyers to propose findings of fact in order to verify what the lawyers believe to be the key factual issues in the case. Thus, in legal circles Judge Jones’ use of the ACLU’s proposed “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” would not be considered “plagiarism” nor a violation of judicial ethics.

Their press release, which is all that most people will read, conveniently doesn't contain the above disclaimer. It instead tries to portray the copying as a misdeed of the judge with quotes like this:

"The new disclosure that Judge Jones' analysis of the scientific status of ID merely copied language written for him by ACLU attorneys underscores just how inappropriate this part of Kitzmiller was

That is negative spin, while the judge just did business in the open as usual. He may have copied more than is normal in a decision (as opposed to order, which as I have shown the lawyers often write in their entirety), but there is absolutely nothing legally or ethically wrong for a judge to do that.

In other words, the DI is being a sore loser and blowing a lot of hot air about nothing.

[Heartlander]

Note that if you dig down into the DI's own report, you will see this little disclaimer:

Proposed “findings of fact” are prepared to assist judges in writing their opinions, and judges are certainly allowed to draw on them. Indeed, judges routinely invite lawyers to propose findings of fact in order to verify what the lawyers believe to be the key factual issues in the case. Thus, in legal circles Judge Jones’ use of the ACLU’s proposed “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” would not be considered “plagiarism” nor a violation of judicial ethics.

Dig down? It’s on page 3, it is not a disclaimer, and it continues:

Nonetheless, the extent to which Judge Jones simply copied the language submitted to him by the ACLU is stunning. For all practical purposes, Jones allowed ACLU attorneys to write nearly the entire section of his opinion analyzing whether intelligent design is science. As a result, this central part of Judge Jones’ ruling reflected essentially no original deliberative activity or independent examination of the record on Jones’ part. The revelation that Judge Jones in effect “dragged and dropped” large sections of the ACLU’s “Findings of Fact” into his opinion, errors and all, calls into serious question whether Jones exercised the kind of independent analysis that would make his “broad, stinging rebuke” of intelligent design appropriate.