Appeals judges skeptical about Cobb ruling
16th December 2005
AJC: Appeals judges skeptical about Cobb ruling
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is not expected to rule until next year, but the three judges’ skeptical questioning indicated they may be poised to side with the Cobb school board in the now-famous sticker case. Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper found that the stickers, which say evolution is a “theory, not a fact,” improperly endorsed religion.
Judge Ed Carnes, who dominated the questioning, said the three-sentence disclaimer seemed to him to be “literally accurate.”
Carnes took issue with Cooper’s finding that a petition with 2,300 names opposing the purchase of new biology textbooks with evolution instruction had been presented to the board before it agreed to place stickers on the books in March 2002. The court record indicates the petitions were presented to the board six months later, in September 2002, Carnes said.
At the end of the arguments, Carnes took the highly unusual step of calling Atlanta lawyer Jeffrey Bramlett, who argued on behalf of parents who filed suit against the stickers, back to the podium before the packed courtroom. Carnes suggested that Bramlett may have misled the court in his legal brief on exactly when the petitions where presented to the school board. Bramlett was told to write a letter to the court explaining how the confusion occurred.
But Carnes may have been misinformed by an incomplete trial record. On March 29, 2002, the day after the school board agreed to affix the stickers to science textbooks, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Marjorie Rogers told the board she had collected petitions signed by 2,300 people who were dissatisfied with the new science texts.
In an interview after Thursday’s court hearing, Rogers, a self-avowed six-day biblical creationist, said she gave the petitions to the board before it decided to buy new science books with chapters on evolution.
“There wouldn’t have been any reason to give it to them in the fall,” she said. “They were done to try and persuade them not to buy the books.” One of the petition’s three options, she said, was for the board to put disclaimers in the new books.
December 17th, 2005 at 12:21 am
Sorry I wasn’t able to meet any of you, but I was able to attend the hearings. I hope the letter Judge Carnes ordered Mr. Bramlett to write will clear up some of the judge’s confusion.