Dover Lawsuit
stcynic | December 21, 2005Mike Dunford has done us all a favor and put together a huge list of links concerning yesterday's Dover ruling. Good place to start if you're looking for information and opinions on it. And thanks, Mike, for the kind words about our Skeptic article.
stcynic | December 21, 2005Law.com has an interesting article about the Dover ruling that makes me wish the case would be appealed:
The declaratory judgment is unlikely to be appealed by the new school board elected last month to replace those who instituted the divisive policy, the board president said Tuesday.
If it is appealed, "I can't think of any panel on the moderate 3rd Circuit (U.S. Court of Appeals) who would think about overturning this thing," said Gregory P. Magarian, who teaches constitutional law at Villanova University School of Law.
stcynic | December 20, 2005The article that Burt Humburg and I wrote will be in the next issue of Skeptic, but in light of today's ruling, they decided to post it online today. You can see it here.
stcynic | December 20, 2005I'm sure this will come as a bit of a shock to you all, but the Discovery Institute isn't happy with the ruling. In fact, they're slamming it as the decision of an "activist judge who has delusions of grandeur." Those damn Bush-appointed activist judges! This furious response is just the icing on the cake for me.
stcynic | December 20, 2005Before we go any further in analyzing and celebrating today's ruling in the Dover trial, I think it's really important to give out some attaboys to the people who made this happen. Burt Humburg and I just finished an article for Skeptic magazine where we went into a lot of detail on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the trial and tried to give credit to the people who worked so hard out of the public eye and without whom we would not now be celebrating this victory. There is a lot of credit to go around, but I'd like to point out a few people who really deserve to be recognized.
Barbara…
stcynic | December 20, 2005The conclusion of the ruling is stunning in its clarity and pointedness:
The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.
Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their…
stcynic | December 20, 2005We pretty much knew we were going to win, the only question was whether we would win little or win big. Folks, we won really, really big. This decision could not be any better for us or any worse for ID. I'll post some excerpts from the ruling here. First, the judge applied both the Lemon test and the endorsement test. The judge ruled unequivocally that ID is a religious idea dressed up in scientific sounding language:
The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter "ID"), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we…
stcynic | December 20, 2005I don't have any details yet, and the decision is not yet available, but I was just informed a moment ago by one of the witnesses at the trial that he has been told by the ACLU attorneys that the ruling is a win for the good guys. More details to follow.
Update: The decision is out. You can download it from my domain here.
stcynic | December 19, 2005I just got word from Glenn Branch of the NCSE that Judge Jones will hand down his ruling in the Dover case tomorrow. No idea what time. But rest assured it'll be posted the moment it's available.
stcynic | December 18, 2005Laurie Goodstein has a profile of Judge Jones, who presided over the Dover trial, in today's New York Times. It's a flattering portrait of the judge as an independent thinker, as every profile of him seems to be (he appears to be widely respected across political boundaries). In the article, there are some hints at what the ruling might be:
Legal experts said the big question was whether Judge Jones would rule narrowly or more broadly on the merits of teaching intelligent design as science. Proponents of the theory argue that living organisms are so complex that the best explanation is that a…
stcynic | December 16, 2005I somehow missed this article from the Chicago Tribune on December 6th, about the possible outcomes of the Dover trial and the long term impacts on the larger dispute those outcomes would be likely to have. The article notes the three possible ways the judge could rule (and the ruling is expected next week):
First, he could rule broadly that ID is a religious belief, not a scientific theory. If so, the introduction of ID in a public school science class would be unconstitutional.
"And that, of course, is the option we are asking the court to take," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the…
stcynic | December 16, 2005The ACLU-PA blog is reporting that Judge Jones will hand down his ruling in the Dover case next week, before Christmas. And in related news, the Cobb County case went to appeal yesterday. I've got the transcripts of the hearing to go over and I'll post an update later.
stcynic | December 14, 2005There are many compelling arguments made in the briefs filed by the plaintiffs in the Dover trial. I'll post a few excerpts of some of the more interesting ones. One of the keys to this trial is establishing that the board acted with the intent of promoting a religious viewpoint in adopting that policy. Under the Lemon test that the courts use to determine an establishment clause violation, a policy must have a clear secular purpose. The plaintiffs cited numerous statements by school board members testifying to their religious intent; the defense countered by arguing that there was in fact a…
stcynic | December 14, 2005The NCSE has posted several new post-trial documents in the Dover case. Essentially, since the testimony phase of the trial ended both sides have been filing briefs with the court making formal arguments for their position and responses to the other side's position. Both sides filed long briefs called "Findings of Fact", and then filed responses to each other's briefs. You can find these briefs in this directory, with those filed by the defense indicated with a "Ds" in the title, and those filed by the plaintiffs with a "Ps" in the title. In particular, there is the plaintiff's response to…
stcynic | December 13, 2005This is certainly an interesting little tidbit that I missed the first time around. A couple months ago, in Pennsylvania, a conference was held called "When Christians and Cultures Clash.” One of the presenters there was an attorney named Randy Wenger, who is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, the religious right legal group behind the frivolous Steven Williams lawsuit in Cupertino, California and a close ally of the Discovery Institute. Wenger is also the attorney who filed amicus briefs on behalf of the DI and the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in the Dover case. Listen to what…
stcynic | December 13, 2005This is certainly an interesting little tidbit that I missed the first time around. A couple months ago, in Pennsylvania, a conference was held called "When Christians and Cultures Clash." One of the presenters there was an attorney named Randy Wenger, who is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, the religious right legal group behind the frivolous Steven Williams lawsuit in Cupertino, California and a close ally of the Discovery Institute. Wenger is also the attorney who filed amicus briefs on behalf of the DI and the Foundation for Thought and Ethics in the Dover case. Listen to what…
stcynic | November 29, 2005Many new documents have been released in the Dover trial. The docket page with links is here. The most interesting parts are the plaintiff's brief in support of proposed findings of fact and the defendant's proposed findings of fact. Those are essentially the briefs filed by the attorneys for both sides regarding the facts and legal analysis of the case that they are urging the judge to adopt in his ruling. The rest of the documents are exhibits and appendices in support in support of those briefs.
stcynic | November 16, 2005Interesting follow up on the question of whether the new school board could get the Dover lawsuit mooted or not. It turns out that at least one person on the old school board wanted to attempt it. The old school board had one last meeting on Monday night before the new board takes over next month and one of the pro-ID board members, David Napierskie, made a motion to attempt to do just that. The York Daily Record notes:
He asked the board to revoke the curriculum change that includes intelligent design, agree to not add it again and ask their legal representation, Thomas More Law Center, to…
stcynic | November 10, 2005If the Dover situation was a joke, this would be the punchline. Pat Robertson says that by voting out the pro-ID school board, the people of Dover have lost their protection from God:
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there."
Gee Pat, does that…
stcynic | November 9, 2005I've been pursuing most of the morning an answer to the question of how the elections last night may change the outcome of the Dover trial. Some have suggested that with the new school board and a presumed change in policy, the case is moot - the policy is reversed, there is no need for a ruling in the case. Others have suggested that it makes no difference at all. The answer appears to be somewhere in between these two. Here is my understanding of the legal situation at this point in all the various aspects.
A. Voluntary cessation doctrine. This legal doctrine says that "a defendant's…