If this gets switched to Religion, I want someone to explain to me how Noah missed this "kind":
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
I agree and support seperation of powers. Thats why I think the juducial branch should not be creating new laws nor ordering the legislative branch to create others.
A constant frustration I have here in FR is just that -- "Good Judge" = "Judicial Activism in judgements we like"; "Bad Judge" = "Judicial Activism in judgements we DON'T like."
They Shaivo threads were one example, abortion is another. I am personally against abortion, but to me it is the Fed should stay the heck out of it and let the States decide.
I believe the 10th Amendment is perhaps the most important, yet it loses in every case to any other concept (not even a clash of Amendments).
Hmmm. If this thread gets switched to Religion, can I be banned for the above remark ex post facto?
Amen! (I know where THIS thread is going.)
"If he really wanted to enforce the Constitution, he'd declare the entire public school system unconstitutional."
Federally you would be correct; on a state level you are wrong. Most states (if not all, I have not checked) have constitutionally required government schools.
Hey, that clearly violates FRs separation of Church and State ;)
Typical liberal judge. He's now surrounded by liberal sycophants. I expect him to issue more disgusting rulings soon. Gotta keep up his popularity at the cocktail parties somehow.
There is no wall separating church and state. There's a limited clause that sets limits on the outer edges of church-state interaction, but nothing more.
Of course, some who support evolution just love this ruling, regardless of its historical correctness. To such people, it doesn't matter how they keep other views away, just so long as they are the only ones who have the ears of the children of this nation.
The proper answer to the question of whether ID teaching violates the "establishment clause" is a simple, "No." The accuracy of the ID theory or any other theory shouldn't matter when it comes to the CONSTITUTIONAL analysis of the situation. It's not unconstitutional to teach that 2+2=5, after all.
ROFL!
If this gets switched to Religion, I want someone to explain to me how Noah missed this "kind":
Har har. And neither do scientists. s/
The Constitution prohibits incursions upon the free expression of ideas in any context, whether it be science, public schools, or private academies. It certainly is not favorable toward prohibiting a discussion of intelligent design in connection with organized matter that performs specific functions. This is a judge who, like a politician, decided whom he would like to please and acted accordingly, beginning with himself. This is also a judge who does not have the capacity to distinguish between a theory and it's implications.
probably due to absurd dietary requirements
I think there's a word for doing it solo.
So do I,
and I really, really, regret the absolute tsunami of bile and arrogance that drives it.
If you can't dazzle 'em with (debate) then baffle them with (innuendo).
Oddly enough, I'm perfectly OK with someone disagreeing with me with a degree of respect - but tossing bombs is just SO islamist.
And, no, I neither know nor care what your side of the debate is, I am not directing comment toward your position or your self;
only toward the inevitable unraveling of anything FR is supposed to represent when crevo/evo links appear.
I'll respect either theory you put forth and I'll allow that you might be just as innocent of oiling the burning waters as I hope I am.
(My OPINION is that the Evo side simply cannot address dissent without a slathering of superiority complex mixed with knowledge that neither side can prove themselves "right" in terms of the dominant debate.
Evolution is observable, apparently sometimes reversible, and certainly logical.
It's the God versus convenient 'soup' thing that can't be proved, screws up the voltage, and [as I understand it] was only part of Darwin's contribution to evolution by osmosis from other contemporary and subsequent commentators.)
auto enthusiasm?
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