Posted on 01/06/2006 8:07:53 AM PST by MRMEAN
The Dover Area School District might learn as early as next week how much it owes in legal fees for its losing court battle over intelligent design.
Those fees will exceed $1 million, said Witold Walczak, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations that represented 11 Dover parents who successfully sued the district to have the intelligent design policy rescinded.
Walczak and another lawyer involved in the case said they were uncertain whether the fees would approach $2 million. He said the total could be known as early as next week or by the end of the month.
A federal judge last month ruled that Dover's policy on intelligent design was religiously motivated and in violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause, which bars government from forming or endorsing a religion. In his ruling, U.S. Middle District Judge John E. Jones III held the district liable for legal fees.
The Dover policy required that ninth-grade students be told that evolution is "not a fact" and that intelligent design is an alternative explanation to the origin of life. Proponents of intelligent design say that some aspects of the universe and life are so complex that they might be the work of an unspecified intelligent designer.
In related news, the district formally discharged the law firm that represented it in the intelligent design trial and will refer all legal issues on the matter to its solicitor -- who warned the school board more than a year ago against adopting the intelligent design policy.
The solicitor, Stephen Russell, said in an interview that he will recommend that the school board not try to seek reimbursement of legal fees from former board members who advocated adoption of the intelligent design policy.
"I have a problem with board members being sued for taking actions that are later found to be wrong," Russell said. "Nobody would run for office."
Nor should the district try to recover legal fees from the Thomas More Law Center, the Christian law firm that represented the district in the case, Russell said.
The district's insurance carrier probably won't pay anything toward legal fees, in part because the school board last year rebuffed the insurer's offer to provide lawyers to represent the district in the intelligent design case, Russell said. The district instead retained the Thomas More Law Center, which represented the district at no charge.
"I'd be surprised if the insurance company would help the district," Russell said.
The insurer also might be dissuaded from making a payout based on the written warning Russell gave to district Superintendent Richard Nilsen on the subject of intelligent design on Aug. 27, 2004, two months before the school board adopted the policy.
In the e-mail to Nilsen, unveiled during the trial in Harrisburg, Russell said, "It may be very difficult to win the case" because it would be perceived that the intelligent design policy "was initiated for religious reasons."
Russell said yesterday he was pleased that Jones agreed with him but not surprised. He said several school board members "were hell-bent on getting what they wanted."
Russell informed the Thomas More Law Center on Wednesday that its services were no longer needed by the board, which on Tuesday voted to rescind the intelligent design policy and not appeal Jones' ruling.
"We're officially done," said Richard Thompson, president of the law center. "This case cried out for an appeal, and it was developed for an appeal. But basically, there are no options at this point."
Seven school board candidates opposed to the intelligent design policy were swept into office by Dover voters in November, four days after the six-week trial ended. An eighth candidate, also opposed to the policy, was elected this week in a re-election held in one precinct because of an apparent voting-machine malfunction.
After the lawyers who represented parents opposed to the Dover policy tabulate their legal fees, they will present them to Russell. If the two sides can negotiate an agreement, the case will end.
Parents in the district were represented by the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the Pepper Hamilton law firm in Philadelphia. As many as six Pepper Hamilton lawyers -- including one whose hourly rate is $400 -- were in the courtroom during parts of the trial.
If the two sides can't agree on legal fees, the district could take the issue to court, before Jones. If he were to rule against the district, it would be responsible for paying any additional fees incurred by the plaintiffs to address the fee issue in court.
"This is not about skewering the school district," Walczak said. "This is about recovering our fees."
At the ACLU, "We don't charge our clients," Walczak added. "Very few people can afford to fight in court on matters of principle. The fact we are willing to do cases at no cost to our clients is an important guarantee of constitutional rights."
In December 2004, Pepper Hamilton, the ACLU and Americans United offered not to seek legal fees if the district dropped its intelligent design policy. The district refused.
Russell said a budget surplus and shifting of spending priorities could help defray some of the legal fees. He said some people have inquired about making donations to help cover the costs.
BILL SULON: 255-8144 or bsulon@patriot-news.com.
LOL I am surprised you have not got zotted yet...
You can get "zotted" for telling the truth? What an odd place this is.
You are not fooling me. ROTFLMAO
You're parsing your words. Services rendered in the expectation of payment are not rendered pro bono.
-most importantly they are leftist morally devoid communists -Satan works "pro bono" as well...
The truth is your best defense.
The school board members are perjurers. Dishonest charlatans.
They thought they could get around the Constitution. They knew what they were doing was wrong, which is why they repeatedly lied about it (including under oath), and why they had to try and hide the money trail.
They deserved to lose. There's no mystery as to why the Discovery Institute tried to distance itself from these losers since the very beginning - the decision was inevitable from the start.
"He said several school board members "were hell-bent on getting what they wanted." [emphasis added]
Deliciously ironic phrasing, considering that he was characterizing the pro-ID dingbats on the Dover School Board. Let's see what the Conservative Republican judge, who was appointed to the Federeal bench by Bush, had to say about the actions of the jerks on the school board:
.... this case came to us [the court] as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. 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.
Thanks, I certainly will! The same to you...
This is misleading. It makes it sound as if the school board decided to hire the Thomas More Law Center after the board's actions were challenged in court.
Instead, it's the other way around -- the Thomas More Law Center initiated this whole fight, and "retained" the Dover school board to be its test case. The Thomas More Law Center had actually spent a few years shopping around the country for a school board willing to be a test case for "Intelligent Design" in the classroom, including ones West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, and several other states, which all declined the "offer". The (former) Dover school board was the first one stupid enough to volunteer.
The Thomas More Law Center very much *should* be held accountable for the county's legal fees... This debacle was their idea from the start.
Also, the article might give the wrong impression when it says, "...Russell said, 'It may be very difficult to win the case" because it would be perceived that the intelligent design policy "was initiated for religious reasons.'" The problem at trial wasn't that the policy could be *perceived* as being religiously motivated, it's that an overwhelming amount of testimony established beyond doubt that it *was*, for a fact, religiously motivated.
Finally, the article's description of the "ID policy" is too sketchy, and gives the impression that the policy was booted as unconstitutional merely for stating that, "evolution is 'not a fact' and that intelligent design is an alternative explanation to the origin of life". The actual policy involved much more than that, and the details are critical when it comes to the reasons why the policy was (correctly) found unconstitutional.
I know that; tell it to the OP. He seems to be on their side.
A couple of my favorite examples (out of *many*) of clear perjury by these so-called "good Christians" are:
1. Former Dover Area School Board member Bill Buckingham stated under oath during the trial that said he never read about his activities on the school board in the newspapers and never talked to anyone about them. He also said he never mentioned creationism at school board meetings or in the press or anywhere.
The plaintiffs then played a Fox 43 TV interview from June 2004 in which Buckingham said, "My opinion, it's OK to teach Darwin, but you have to balance it with something else, such as creationism."
2. Buckingham also said that he didn't know where the 60 copies of the "ID" book, "Of Pandas and People" had come from. That's pretty funny, since Buckingham himself had asked for donations at his church for the book, raised $850 for the purpose, then wrote a check dated Oct. 4, 2004, to Donald Bonsell, the father of board member Alan Bonsell, for that amount with a note saying the money was for "Pandas" books.
I throw my opinion out there, and peopole respond to it. You know darn well where I stand, I don't have to defend it. This is an opinion and news forum I believe. Now, if you care to throw anything but insults my way feel free.
Not much of a conversation if you're dismissive to people who post in good faith.
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Do not include me in your moral relative drama...
You too.
P.S. since you saw fit to post your junk to me I will comment that your anti-Christian crusade cloaked in science grows tiring and as always is transparently obvious.
Again -feel free to share it with the trolls and morally devoid. -- If I have to read your anti-Christian rhetoric let it be by accident alone if you continue without being banned -do not include me in your postings while they continue this way...
You would not be zotted for telling the truth here.
All discussions involving creationism/ID/evolution at FR have merely devolved into mere name-calling fests.
I try not to participate as I see the same people (on both sides, to some degree) make similar, tired, over-broad statments.
"Do not include me in your moral relative drama..."
See Post #31.
I'd think the perjuring ID supporting school board member was the "moral relativist," given that he thinks lying in court is acceptable in supporting a divine purpose.
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