Judging Intelligent Design
A Cut-and-Paste Ruling
Judge John Jones once told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he became a judge hoping that someday he would have a chance “to rule in matters of great importance.”
Well, last year he got his chance. He ruled on Kitzmiller v. Dover, holding that you could not teach intelligent design in public schools. But given what’s leaked out about his decision, Judge Jones is not likely to be remembered as “an outstanding thinker,” as Time magazine called him. Instead, we might remember him as the judge who let a litigant write his opinion.
Maybe I am an idealist, but going back to law school, I have always respected judges. I believe they take seriously their oath to uphold the laws and the Constitution and to rule impartially. Sad to say, this judge apparently did not.
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Maybe I should not have been surprised because, two months before the case was heard, the judge said in a newspaper interview that he was going to go see Inherit the Wind, the old film about the Scopes trial, hopelessly biased toward the evolutionists’ view. He said he wanted to do it to get a context for hearing the Dover case. I wrote him and explained that it is historically inaccurate; he never replied.
Now it turns out that even as the media was praising Judge Jones for his brilliant insights, the Discovery Institute found that ACLU attorneys had actually written key sections of the ruling. In the section on intelligent design, more than 90 percent “was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’,” so says the Discovery Institute.
Thus, as the Discovery Institute notes, the central part of the ruling reflects no original, deliberative activity or independent examination of the record on the judge’s part.
And that’s not all. The problem when you let somebody else write your decision is that they may make a mistake. And you, then, look silly.
For example, Jones misrepresented biochemist Michael Behe; he claimed that Behe said that articles purporting to explain the evolution of the immune system were not good enough. But what Behe actually said was: “It’s not that they aren’t good enough. It’s simply that they are addressed to a different subject.” This came right out of the ACLU’s writings.
Jones also claimed that intelligent design “is not supported by any peer-reviewed . . . publications.” Again, wrong and, again, straight from the ACLU’s brief.
This, it turns out, is not even the first time or maybe the worst of Judge Jones passing off other people’s words as his own. In a commencement address, he “employed direct quotations from the book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America,” according to World magazine, “without providing citation or indication that he was quoting.”
As World magazine noted, none of what Judge Jones did in the Dover decision amounts to a violation of judicial ethics. But other judges will hardly be impressed, which is a good thing since the press are saying this is a precedent for future cases.
The Old Testament warns judges: “You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality.” Cutting and pasting from one side’s brief does not say much for impartiality—something for you to point out next time someone throws the Dover decision in your face.
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From BreakPoint®, February 2, 2007, Copyright 2007, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. “BreakPoint®” and “Prison Fellowship Ministries®” are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship Ministries
