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Jack Thompson Walks Out On Hearing
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Jun 04, 2008 07:06 PM
from the please-let-this-be-the-end dept.
from the please-let-this-be-the-end dept.
Erik J writes "Apparently Jack had heard enough.
The Florida Bar asked for an 'enhanced disbarment' in the disciplinary hearing of Jack Thompson, held earlier this afternoon. The recommendation means Thompson would be disbarred and prohibited from applying to practice law again for ten years, according to 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida spokesperson Eunice Sigler.
Thompson's disciplinary hearing apparently ended in the attorney walking out of the courtroom after saying the judge did not have the authority to hear his case."
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Obviously he's not a fan of computer games (Score:5, Funny)
How dare you! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How dare you! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Hasn't he... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, just read his Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney) [wikipedia.org]
I think he needs mental treatment.
Re:Hasn't he... (Score:5, Informative)
In a prepared statement left with the court he called the florida bar association Fascists. While the final ruling isn't due until September(long process remember) I can't imagine a judge being called incompetent is going to help him any.
Parent
Re:Hasn't he... (Score:5, Interesting)
"In 1992, Thompson asked a Florida judge to declare the Florida Bar Association unconstitutional. He said that the bar was engaged in a vendetta against him because of his religious beliefs, which he said conflict with what he called the bar's pro-gay, humanist, liberal agenda."
I'm not seeing it on Wikipedia, but I've read that he has filed suit against George Bush as well. He repeatedly files ridiculous law suits that demonstrate he has little working knowledge of how the judicial system is supposed to operate, and abuses his power as an attourney.
He should have been disbarred years and years ago for his tactics. He filed a lawsuit here in Omaha against the police chief for not handing over evidence on a sealed, active investigation on Robert Hawkins. He sues people for not pressing video game angles in criminal investigations, even before any evidence presents itself to suggest it a factor.
He "predicts" people's guilt ahead of time based on video games, and then uses legal threats to enforce those predictions that repeatedly turn out to be false.
He isn't just a nut-job, he is a bully who violates court orders and makes fairly serious threats. I'm shocked Florida has let this guy practice law for decades now.
Parent
Re:Hasn't he... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Isn't he always complaining... (Score:5, Funny)
Well... Here you are jack, consequences for your arrogant actions. This is no game though, I'm sorry you don't have a save point to revert to.
Good riddance. (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine, when I asked him why he was yelling to the crowd of students (in the cafeteria) instead of just speaking to them told me someone told him that if you want to get elected, then speak real loud. He was elected to the student board.
Jack Thompson has his followers but obviously this man is a kook. I can't imagine anyone getting away with the bullshit he has and not be punished. So now, he's saying they have no authority over him? He'll be surprised when he's arrested for practicing law after he's been disbarred.
Good riddance to him.
Ten years is unusual (Score:5, Informative)
Ten years is unusual. I'm not even sure I've ever *heard* of "enhanced disbarment" before.
By its nature, disbarment is permanent. In many (most?) states, an attorney can petition to be considered for lifting of disbarment after five years--but has a heavy burden; he must show that he is no longer a danger if allowed to practice. The fact that he is a danger was established prior to disbarment; disputing it would end the possibility of showing the needed change.
Ten years, however . . . and that does *not* mean he gets the license back then, only that that is the earliest date at which he *could* request it and attempt to show fitness . . .
hawk, esq.
Re:Ten years is unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
What Jack did was beyond stupid. Way way beyond stupid. It's the kind of stuff only people who are clinically insane do. You don't attach pornography to court filings. Ask anyone you know if they think it would be a good idea to attach gay pornography to a public court filing, I'll pay you $100 if someone honestly, without prompting, sarcasm or malice says yes. In fact I bet you could go ask the people at the state mental hospital the same question and would get the same response. That's just how stupid what he did was.
Parent
Re:Ten years is unusual (Score:5, Funny)
Court clerks do read the stuff first -- it's almost certain the judge got a heads-up call first, likely starting with "you're not going to believe this, but..."
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What not to do in a court room (Score:5, Informative)
.
No matter how badly things go for you in court, no matter how much you dislike the ruling, no matter how unjust you feel you've been treated... NEVER insult a judge or be less than totally respectful for the process.
And don't ever tell a judge they "don't have the authority". You'll be in a higher court soon. Judges don't like people being disrepectful of other judges, not even when the judge in question is wrong. Especailly when your own motives and reasons are (properly) called into question.
The first rule of litigation . . . (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously.
hawk, esq.
Parent
Re:The first rule of litigation . . . (Score:5, Informative)
1. Do NOT Piss off the Judge.
2. Do not piss off your defense attorney.
If you cause #1, you will cause #2, and you will be well and truly fucked.
Oh yeah, #3 Do NOT testify in your own defense (And even worse, Do NOT insist against the best advise of your lawyer that you be allowed to). It doesn't matter how well you think you'll do, or how innocent you think your ass is. It is almost always (i.e. 99% of the time) a horrible idea.
Parent
Pull a Reiser (Score:5, Informative)
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top secret inside information: GTA5 (Score:5, Funny)
We can ignore him now (Score:5, Funny)
You have been so cruel and at the same time so foolish as to call my pleadings herein "propaganda." That word means something, given how propaganda was used in the last century by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany
He Godwinned himself straight out of the gate. Next
You fools! (Score:5, Funny)
If Jack's plan had succeeded for Halo 3, GTAIV, CoD4, etc, then I would never have to listen to a 11-year-old child screaming in my ear about his prepubescent views on life while he rapes me 15 kills to 4, since it's all he does all day, every day. In fact, he could get his xbox live account cancelled if I lost to him and decided to report his underaged cowlick.
You hear the name "Jack Thompson" and shriek like banshees, but in fact, he was going to keep underaged gamers out of our servers, and for that, he would have been a savior to the online FPS community, not a villain that you portray him to be. Think for yourselves on this.
Thanks to this blind tomfoolery, things will never get better, because no one will dare enforce age guidelines lest they receive a similar fate, and you'll be losing to castrato-voiced 9-year olds telling you how your mother was the last time they slept with her for the rest of your geriatric lives.
He's the guy who made "2 Live Crew" famous (Score:5, Interesting)
Thompson started his career as a loudmouth by complaining about some rap from "2 Live Crew" back in the early 1990s. I bought the 2 Live Crew CD to see what all the fuss was about. They were a terrible rap group, at the low end of the garage-band level. My comment at the time was that "this group would never have gotten off the South Florida club circuit without the censorship attempt".
just playing the game.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:fp (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, when it comes to ambulance-chasing frothing-at-the-mouth nutcase walking jokes, Ol' J.T. takes the cake. And then sues Hostess for making it...
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Re:fp (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:fp (Score:5, Informative)
I get your point however a colostomy [wikipedia.org] isn't actually the removal of the anus. I can't find what that procedure is called but the colostomy just changes the location for the function of the anus. No removal actually occurs from what I can tell.
Parent
Re:fp (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez, what's in your anus?
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Re:fp (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:fp (Score:5, Funny)
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obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:fp (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:fp (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:fp (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox already hires nutjubs, crack cases, and quacks. Why stop at disbarred lawyers?
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Re:fp (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst thing that Jack could do is stop talking, though. He's like PETA. Some people could agree with his points, but he makes it very hard to espouse those positions without being lumped in with the loonies.
Quiet censorship is far more nefarious.
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
>stop talking, though. He's like PETA. Some
>people could agree with his points, but he
>makes it very hard to espouse those
>positions without being lumped in with the loonies.
I for one, enjoy having a rational discussion more than having crazies scream at me.
There are legitimate questions about what sort of material should be available to minors. I'm on the side of requiring the parents to do most of the footwork to protect their children, but it might also be helpful if extra tools were provided.
In particular, what if games came with an age group flag when they were installed, and operating system users could also have an age limit specified, so that applications with a "18+" flag would not launch of a user configured as "13."
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Informative)
You know that was such a good idea that every console maker decided to implement it as well as Microsoft with Windows Vista.
It's really a non argument.
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
This gives me an idea. Let's devise a way so that parents could somehow know what video games their kids were playing. That way they could choose what they felt appropriate for their child.
This could work for other influences in the child's life, like friends, TV, movies, etc.
If only there were a way for a parent to get involved.
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Funny)
Many species are able to detect this type of radiation -- and this might seem far-fetched, but I have a hunch that humans might be able to do it too, at least with the proper training. If a parent could learn to distinguish between different games, movies, etc. by detecting patterns in the electromagnetic radiation they emit, they might be able to figure out what their kids are up to.
Clearly, this needs to be studied more before we can draw any conclusions, but I'm willing to do the research if someone wants to fund it.
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was thirteen, I was playing violent videogames - actually, IIRC, I was addicted to Solar Winds [wikipedia.org] - and jerkin' off to Playboy, Heavy Metal [wikipedia.org] magazine and whatever I could find via NNTP [google.com]. Oh, yeah, and trolling chatrooms... starting every conversation with "asl?"
Let kids be kids. Jeesh. That means getting obsessed with ninja gear, jerkin' off until their wrists are sore, and blowing things up with crudely made homemade explosives that only work a quarter of the damn time.
Parent
Bollocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side, Jack Thompson is used as a punching bag by video gamers and rational thinkers everywhere. Those with a capacity for critical thought are not swayed by Thompson's arguments or behavior regardless of their position. Those without a capacity for critical thought have already chosen a side. Those who agree with Thompson either see him as a martyr or don't associate his lunacy with their beliefs.
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no. In fact, that's complete bullshit. Just how would you even going about quantifying the political health of a regime? Even if you could, how would then quantify music in a way that relates meaningfully? I suspect you have no studies or evidence to back that absurd proposition, but even if you did, it'd be obvious from the start that the methodology of the study is hopelessly unscientific. In other words, this is just complete and utter bullshit made up to support an argument that's just as bogus.
I will give you this: it's an old and persistent idea, it goes back at least to Plato. Of course, he had no evidence or good reason for saying it, either.
Parent
Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good ridance (Score:5, Funny)
And a big fire...
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Re:You probably don't want to hear this, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really in both of those cases the reason why people hate them is that they were abusing the legal system for personal gain, being disbarred is what is supposed to happen in those cases.
Parent
Freedom of speech yes, abuse of due process no. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for his flagrant abuse of the legal process in order to advance his political agenda... that can and should be stopped, and it doesn't constitute gagging him either. It should be stopped because it's abuse of the law. It also should be stopped because he's wrong.
Parent
Re:Freedom of speech yes, abuse of due process no. (Score:5, Insightful)
No argument there.
> It also should be stopped because he's wrong.
That is where we are in conflict. If you want to present an argument contrary to his position, then fine. That is a part of civil discourse. That is a part of the freedom of speech. But let's face the fact here: a lot of people on Slashdot are arguing that JT should be stopped simply because they don't agree with him. Yet IF a hypothetical anti-JT was standing up for the freedom of expression in violent video games, and abusing the system of law in the exact same manner, a lot of people around these parts would be crying bloody murder if the anti-JT was facing disbarment.
And MAYBE a mild version of that has already happened. Remember the days of the SCO lawsuit. Remember how almost everyone was standing behind IBM's and Novell's legal teams almost without question. Remember how almost everyone was vilifying SCO, again without question. Now I'm not going to stand up for SCO because I believe that developers should have reasonable freedom to create and distribute their own work. But the point was that people were standing up for IBM and Novell without questioning their tactics or their motives.
The reason for that, and the reason why a lot of people seem so eager to see JT disbarred, is because we have an intense emotional attachment to the issue. We are letting it cloud our judgement, and because of that we have the online equivalent of a public lynching.
That emotial response is what I'm opposed to. Ever the more so because we are saying that our sense of morality takes priority over his.
Parent
Re:Freedom of speech yes, abuse of due process no. (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. I'm a member of the Florida Bar, and when I took my oath (presumably the same one Thompson took) I was consciously binding myself to a certain standard of behavior, and agreeing to limitations as to what I can say and how I can behave. If I ever find those limits too restrictive I can resign from the Bar. What Thompson wants is to be able to use the tools available to him as a licensed attorney, but not follow the restrictions he agreed to when being given those tools.
Parent
Re:You probably don't want to hear this, but ... (Score:5, Informative)
Jack Thompson was even involved in the 80's daycare scare (the "ritual satanic abuse") that ruined dozens of lives. For that alone, he is not simply strident, objectionable, or obstreperous, but really and truly evil. Schadenfreude may be shameful, but today I nonetheless feel the joy.
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