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that represented 11 Dover parents who successfully sued the district to have the intelligent design policy rescinded.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.
The men who wrote and ratified the First in many cases went home to states that required tithes to the established state church. This was a common practice in New England up till the 1820's. One could belong to the non-official church and send one's tithes there. But in order for these tithes to count under law, the church had to be chartered by the state.
Lawsuits were brought by non-church members seeking to avoid the tithe requirement, with the result that their tithes must go to the established church if they did not belong to any other. All citizens had to tithe to some church, somewhere, period.
Compared to today's strict "church state separation" that removes even historical recognition of religion in the culture, that was a pretty tight relationship, even in the day when Jefferson penned the famous "church state separation" quote in the letter to the Danbury Baptists.
So the question becomes "how does the 14th extend the prohibitions on Congress to other government bodies". In my humble opinion, the First is not covered by the 14th at all, because it does not enumerate rights of the people. It is *claimed* to do that, but the clear reading of it with the understanding of how governments commonly related to churches and the press at the time, it can only be a congressional restriction.
The 14th was written immediately after the civil war, and it's intent was to halt the claims of southern states that the rights contained in the BoR only related the federal government. That's a pretty silly claim, because when it says "The right of the people to keep and bear arms", the BoR isn't limited in scope in any way. That right must have related to the people living in the states, otherwise it makes no sense.
This contrasts with the First, which as I claim above is limited in scope specifically to the Congress. I trust that if the Congressional limit in the First was to be expanded to State legislatures and teachers in classrooms, the writers of the 14th would have said so. But without such modification, I think it's pretty silly that a limitation on the Congress magically limits what a public school teacher can say and do merely because the "Rights" contained in the BoR are extended to the states.
All just my opinion, of course.
I find it amazing that the creationists have such little interest in the words of St. Augustine....I was just struck as to how timely and appropriate and beautiful the words were....
Words do mean things, in the case of this quote, you are indeed so right, the words still ring very true after so many years...
Thanks to you both for the links to St. Augustine...those are keepers...
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"I've never actually been out in it."
You have to go at night
That may be your opinion or that may be but a straw man that you erect -IF on the other hand you imply my position then you are incorrect and are too wimpy to simply objectively state rather than infer.
WE are the government... WE take sides daily... It is when the officials e.g. judiciary take sides contrary to the people that there is a problem... It is called judicial activism... Not possible if the government IS the people...
In this case specifically the school board was voted out AND the school board may have changed the policy; however, it did not matter.
The ousting of the school board was in essence meaningless and moot act accomplished by an impotent electorate with only the semblance of determination BECAUSE a judiciary imposed its will upon the people AND if the people had voted to retain the school board it would be objectively obvious that the judiciary did its own thing in spite of the people...
This is just another Lawrence decision...
LOL -which one? How about historically the one that still is in many? Maybe you wish to stick my head in the sand with yours? Maybe the utopia of inclusion you envision creating will be better than the world of reality chosen by the people living in it...
Let me point out your severely flawed argument -maybe you just do not realize your position is untenable AND more socialistic or communistic than AMERICAN?
To ask the question "which one" objectively showcases a flawed premise that there is "one" e.g. that there must be a state religion OTHERWISE there can be no religion...
Wow -here is a shocker --what about IF people locally determine what is what e.g. the school board? Guess what there can be MANY and people can move to where they want and follow whatever they want -- WOW this seem so AMERICAN!
Are you suggesting that people who don't follow a single specific deity be driven from the country, or at least be given no say whatsoever in the government?
No -you are -- it is called a straw man...
Good post. But it does seem a bit offbeat to use an absolutist reading on the Bill of Rights in this manner.
The current position of the Supreme Court is that the First Amendment does apply now to states and localities (as it clearly did not originally) through the Doctrine of Incorporation. If this is true, and if you are correct in your assessment of the Establishment Clause, then the Constitution has been flipped upside down. An amendment (the First) originally designed to restrict federal power now is held to unleash such power against the states & localities and the desires of the voters in those jurisdictions. Judge Jones is the most recent example of such unleashed federal power.
Would you accept narby's position that the Doctrine of Incorporation doesn't apply to the relevant provisions of the First Amendment? The DOI is, after all, judicially created and is applied by the Supreme Court only when it's convenient to what they politically want to do. It's like the amorphous "right to privacy". It doesn't mean you can do anything you want in private. It means you can do anything the majority of justices find unobjectionable in private. Ditto for their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. It's never been interpreted to ban all laws that discriminate, only discriminatory laws the majority of the court politically dislike (so excluding women from VMI is a violation while progressive taxation is not).
Ignoring the DOI, states & localities would be free to teach ID regardless of the intent of the framers of the First Amendment. And whatever that intent was as it relates to Congress, it's certain that it was never intended to be a club with which to bash states, localities, and their electorates.
I think you're generally correct here. This is the reason it took constitutional amendments to give federally guaranteed suffrage to blacks and women AFTER the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.
Of course today, with judicial activism, the 14th is held to even prevent states from blocking the enactment of "gay rights" ordinances or having a male-only military institute.
I don't like hypocrites. I don't like them whether they're the Liars for Jesus on the Dover school board. And I don't like them if they're judges on a court that pretends to take the Constitution so seriously on the one hand, while totally ignoring the original intent of it's writers on the other.
My argument on whether the 14th expanded the restrictions in the First is interesting. I don't think there's any way it would gain much acceptance, mainly because the First also contains language about the press, and I doubt if even the Bloggers would stand for any reduction in their rights as now recognized by the courts.
What bothers me the most is that it's apparent that we no longer actually have a constitution at all. The courts rely more on subsequent precedent rather than it's original intent. And the countries leadership won't really stand for removing power from them today, and giving it to those that wrote and ratified the constitution years ago. Thus, Bork was Borked when he tried to lecture the Congress on the Constitution.
We really have an unwritten constitution, like England. I just wish someone in power would be honest and say that out loud.
The TriuneDidit placemark
I'll agree with you in part and disagree with you in part here. :-)
I see nothing in that passage from the Pennsylvania state constitution that would prohibit ID, unless you also hold it to ban Nativity Scenes, crosses on city seals, and the like.
You may have a good point that ID'ers wasted a good opportunity here, and that it will take a much better case than the sloppy behavior of the Dover school board to get the Supreme Court to back off on its overreach on church-state issues.
By the same token, do you think the pro-evolution forces might actually be hurting themselves with these lawsuits? It probably increases public disbelief in evolution every time a judge slams his hammer down and bans alternatives from being considered, even for a minute of school time.
If evolution is such a strong theory, which would be better for it: A) Allowing a few minutes of class discussion of an alternate idea or B) Daily news reports of the latest evolutionist lawsuit demanding that any alternate idea be banned from discussion? When "B" is constantly in the news, people start to suspect things.
Sadly, you are all too correct on this. The Constitution today is simply whatever the Supreme Court says it is.
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