Judge John Jones

The egregious case of copying text from plaintiffs’ attorneys by federal judge John E. Jones has drawn additional criticism from legal scholars who explain that such copying should be scrutinized and carefully examined. Yesterday Discovery Institute released a report revealing that the key section of the widely-noted court decision in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover intelligent design case was copied nearly verbatim from a document written by ACLU lawyers. “Discovery Institute is on solid ground in pointing out Judge Jones’ highly questionable practice in this case,” said Bruce Green, an attorney with the Center for Law and Policy. “While having no legal bearing at this stage, it is highly frowned upon by the federal judiciary for a judge to adopt wholesale Read More ›

The Associated Press and WorldNetDaily are both reporting that Judge John Jones has refused to respond to Discovery Institute’s study showing that he copied nearly verbatim 90.9% of his 6,004-word analysis of whether intelligent design is science from a document submitted to him by ACLU attorneys. Someone should ask Judge Jones why he is suddenly so reticent to talk about his ruling. During the past year, he has traversed the country to speak at public events and talk about his ruling at length, usually before friendly audiences. But now someone raises the uncomfortable fact that he copied the central part of his ruling from the ACLU, and mum’s the word.