Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The ACLU's Ties to the "Independent" Judiciary
A year ago this month, I wrote on some disturbing news regarding Judge John Jones, a federal district judge in Pennsylvania who authored - or should I say, supposedly authored - a decision that prohibited intelligent design from being taught in Pennsylvania schools. At the time, Judge Jones was running off at the mouth in the New York Times.
The Discovery Institute noticed some, uh, similarities between Jones' 139-page opinion and literature produced by the ACLU, so they performed a statistical analysis of how much of the opinion was original and how much had been the focus of a cut-and-paste from the ACLU's amicus brief in the case.
It turns out that 90.9% of the opinion was actually written by the ACLU and lifted directly into Jones' opinion. It may not be unusual for judges to rely on amicus briefs for finer points of argument, but copying 90.9% of your opinion from the ACLU's brief?
It appears that liberals only bring up an independent judiciary when referring to intrusion by another branch of elected government; infiltration by the American Civil Liberties Union is apparently OK.
The Discovery Institute noticed some, uh, similarities between Jones' 139-page opinion and literature produced by the ACLU, so they performed a statistical analysis of how much of the opinion was original and how much had been the focus of a cut-and-paste from the ACLU's amicus brief in the case.
It turns out that 90.9% of the opinion was actually written by the ACLU and lifted directly into Jones' opinion. It may not be unusual for judges to rely on amicus briefs for finer points of argument, but copying 90.9% of your opinion from the ACLU's brief?
It appears that liberals only bring up an independent judiciary when referring to intrusion by another branch of elected government; infiltration by the American Civil Liberties Union is apparently OK.
Permalink posted by Rob Huddleston @ 2:37 AM 
