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Jack Thompson Disbarred
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 25, 2008 01:41 PM
from the it-burns-it-burns dept.
from the it-burns-it-burns dept.
Sockatume writes "The Florida Supreme Court has approved Judge Dava Tunis' recommendations for the permanent disbarment of John B. "Jack" Thompson, with no leave to reapply and $43,675.35 in disciplinary costs. The ruling is a step up from the enhanced disbarment that had been suggested by the prosecution, which would have forbidden him from reapplying for ten years. Thompson has 30 days to appeal the ruling before the disbarment is permanent. Thompson responds to the ruling."
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Idle: 6-Year-Old Says Grand Theft Auto Taught Him To Drive 504 comments
nandemoari writes "A six-year-old who recently stole his parents' car and drove it into a utility pole has passed the buck onto a familiar scapegoat: the video game, Grand Theft Auto.
Rockstar Games' controversial Grand Theft Auto video game has been criticized by parent groups and crusaders (or in the eyes of gamers, nincompoops) like former lawyer Jack Thompson for years (Thompson once tried to link the Virginia Tech slayings to late-night Counterstrike sessions. He's since been disbarred). However, not as of yet has anyone under the age of, oh, ten, blamed the game for a car theft."
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Games: Violence in Games, Once Again, Not That Compelling 191 comments
One of the great arguments of the digital age has been over the effects of video games on aggression — especially if you have ever heard the name Jack Thompson. A recent study suggest the counterpoint once again, that violent video games really don't have that much impact. "The authors performed six studies in total, but they were in broad agreement, so we'll only discuss the more compelling ones here. For the experimental portion, these involved playing an essentially identical game with different degrees of violent content. One group of participants was randomly assigned to play the game House of the Dead 3 on the different extremes of its gore settings, while a second was split between those who played the normal version of Half-Life 2, and a those who played a modified version that turned the adventure into an elaborate game of tag. In both cases, the primary influences on enjoyment were the sense of competence and satisfaction, along with the immersive nature of the game. Generally, females rated immersion as more important, while males went for competence (and consistently rated their own expertise very highly). Violence didn't register when it came to enjoyment, even for those with pre-existing violent tendencies."
[+]
Games: Jack Thompson Attacks DoD, ESA, GTA With Utah Bill 235 comments
eldavojohn writes "Delusional disbarred Miami attorney Jack Thompson claims to have a bill in the state of Utah that targets retailers and entire industries with the Truth in Advertising Law. The best part of his rant: 'Our military appropriately uses violent video games a) to suppress the inhibition to kill of new recruits, and b) to teach killing scenarios. Games have the same effect on civilian teens.' While GamePolitics couldn't find the bill on Utah's state site, they did receive a response from him claiming 'I have a sponsor and a bill, and [the video game] industry is in trouble.' For 2009 bills, there seems to be merely a bill enhancing the Truth in Advertising Law but does not contain any of Thompson's verbiage. Good 'ole Jack — always good for some laughs, but really he needs to give it up one of these days."
[+]
Games: Supreme Court Declines Jack Thompson Appeal 100 comments
eldavojohn writes "Jack Thompson was disbarred last year in Florida, putting a halt to annoying lawsuits targeting game makers and the constitutional rights of gamers. Well, he had appealed to the United States Supreme Court (scheduled to be heard last Friday) to get this overturned, but instead they declined to even hear his appeal. They wouldn't even give him the time to review his appeal, so it appears his disbarment for life stands. Florida had declined to file a response to Thompson's appeal, and it turns out they didn't need to. Sad day for Jack Thompson, but a great day for gamers everywhere."
This comes shortly after Thompson was frustrated by the vetoing of some legislation he promoted in Utah.
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Hallelujah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe now we won't have to hear about him all the damn time.
~t
Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about damn time this poor excuse for a human being was disbarred. Maybe now we won't have to hear about him all the damn time. ~t
Fat chance. Now he'll have his own talk show on Fox
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Fat chance. Now he'll have his own talk show on Fox
The man doesn't appear to be entirely sane. It's near-impossible to tell if his ravings are the product of delusions - or just attempts to apply ANY potential perversion of logic to avoid the crop he's sown.
With the lunatic rambling this guy uses to defend his arguments, and all of his abuse of supposition in lieu of actual logic, I'm pretty sure no network would dream of giving him his own show.
Wait... did you say Fox?
Forget everything I just said then...
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope he gets the help he needs. I think its getting obvious that his mental condition is far from normal and his obsession with finding wrongs in videogames has ruined his life.
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Informative)
Read the Kotaku link on it... as of this writing, it's still up, while the other one is slashdotted...
http://kotaku.com/5054772/jack-thompson-disbarred [kotaku.com]
The document they posted is quite brief, but for those who don't feel like reading the whole thing, the paragraph that answers your question is paragraph 4:
Quoted, unmodified. Every paragraph of the filing is pertinent... it's only about a page's worth of text, so well worth the read. And IMHO, it's well worth disbarring him. And the only way he's affected *me* personally was that, thanks to one of his initiatives, I had to ask the staff at EB Games to sell me a copy of Bully, because they didn't have it actually *on* the shelves.
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Interesting)
How about his filings disrespectful to the courts [wikipedia.org] for starters? Perhaps submitting gay porn as court documents so they're part of the public record [digg.com] strikes you as a better reason? How about "making false and disparaging statements" [law.com] about judges and other attorneys?
The claims are that he repeatedly makes false and inflammatory claims about others in and out of court, disrespects the officers of the court, and refuses to follow the rules of the court or to act with decorum in the courtroom. I'd say those are sufficient grounds. The Florida Bar Association and the courts appear to think so, and they consider the complaints against him legitimate enough to act. IANAL, but I know they need to abide by some rules and that they should know those rules better than the rest of us.
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Informative)
Disbarment doesn't have anything to do with illegal activities...You should read the trial transcripts. I read them as a lark, because I get a kick out of JT's nutbaggery, but I lost my enjoyment about halfway through reading all the testimony from lawyers and judges about a truly obscene level of harassment.
It's clear that they felt that bringing a suit against him for libel and slander would only further his aims, so you see, for example, a prominent partner at a law firm, another member of which was involved in a suit against JT, being publicly accused of peddling pornographic materials to minors. A clear attempt at intimidation.
Likewise the Alabama case, when the judge revoked JT's pro hac vice after JT's blatantly contradicted the Judge's instructions regarding talking to the press, which also included some basic lies regarding his status on the case (the pro hac vice had not been approved when he started representing himself as the actual lawyer on the case, which he couldn't have been without the PHV). After the PHV was revoked, JT started making criminal racketeering charges against the judge, and the judge who had held the seat previously, who, as in the first case, wasn't even involved.
Imagine being dragged through the mud by a rabid, paranoid jackass who is just out to intimidate someone else whom you happen to know.
Here is a link to the Referee Report Recommending his disbarment [libsyn.com] (pdf warning). It's part funny, and part disgusting.
It's frankly amazing that he got away with it as long as he did. You'd think, if gamers were as violent as he swears we are, someone would have killed his dumb ass.
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe now we won't have to hear about him all the damn time.
~t
Not even close.
Jack is going to call out against video games until he dies or retires. He enjoys the attention and the money.
He's now completely free to so whatever he wants and say whatever he wants and act in any manner he pleases - he has no professional association to give him any oversight.
We haven't seen the last of him, not by a long shot.
Even if we had seen the last of him, that would be a bad thing. He's a raving loon, and if he represents those who are against violent games, that's good for those of us who are 30+ years old, have jobs, mortgages, kids, spouses, and the entire GTA series.
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Informative)
Jack is going to call out against video games until he dies or retires.
Um, hope nobody has to explain to you that being disbarred IS a retirement. He's retired. He cannot practice his profession legally. He may start a new career as a news commentator (Nancy Grace already filled CNN's quota for shrill moralistic harpies but there's always CBS or NBC or something). That's a separate career if it ever materializes, so as of now, he IS retired.
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Re:Hallelujah! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Bad news for GTA (Score:5, Funny)
Not that I see that as a bad thing...
on the plus side (Score:5, Funny)
this will give more time to sit around in front of the computer at home, playing video games
Kind of a shitty link, sorry guys (Score:5, Informative)
Well I'll be... (Score:5, Funny)
This will be a day long remembered. (Score:5, Interesting)
It has seen the end of a RIAA lawsuit [zdnet.com],
The end of copyright cops [wired.com],
The end of Comcast's forging of RST packets [pcauthority.com.au],
It will soon see the end of the Empire itself!
Re:This will be a day long remembered. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can add to that list
http://torrentfreak.com/european-parliament-says-no-to-three-strikes-law-080925/ [torrentfreak.com] (URL pretty much tells what's that about)
and
The Pirate Bay's blocking in Italy is apparently overruled [brokep.com] after TPB sent in their lawyers.
This is a *very* good day :)
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Re:This will be a day long remembered. (Score:5, Funny)
I also hear Duke Nukem Forever went gold today!
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Re:This will be a day long remembered. (Score:5, Funny)
The end of an error.
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Re:This will be a day long remembered. (Score:5, Funny)
wait until after the mortgage bail out fails and then even with global petrol reduction the global economy tanks without americans able to borrow money to buy big houses they can't afford to drive
"One day, when I came home from work, I accidentally put my car key in the door of my apartment building. I turned it and the whole building started up. So I drove it around. A policeman stopped me for going too fast. He said, 'Where do you live?' I said, 'Right here.' Then I drove my building onto the middle of a highway, and I ran outside, and told all of the cars to get the hell out of my driveway." -- Steven Wright
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He doesn't know when to quit... (Score:5, Informative)
April fools? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean seriously - this is just too good to be true.
Jack Thompson disbarred. The RIAA loses its first court case on their "making available" theory.
I'm waiting for the OMG ponies to show up.
Re:April fools? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean seriously - this is just too good to be true. Jack Thompson disbarred. The RIAA loses its first court case on their "making available" theory.
Wait till you get to the one about your government wanting $2000 of your money to bail out banks who apparently still thought that pyramid schemes were a good idea.
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Re:April fools? (Score:5, Funny)
This just in: SCO admits shenanigans, forfeits all future appeals!
Microsoft declares the war is over; adopts open-source licenses for all of its products
P is proven not to equal NP; poor grad student becomes king of shit fuck mountain ...I mean seriously, what a day! I don't know about all of you, but I'm going to go celebrate by playing my "murder simulator"!
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Nerd-vana (Score:5, Funny)
So today we have stories in which the DOJ opposes becoming the Federal Copyright Cops, the RIAA loses a couple hundred thousand dollar lawsuit, and Jack Thompson gets disbarred. To quote Perfect Strangers: Now we are so happy, we do the Dance of Joy!
Can somebody.... (Score:5, Funny)
.... Please give him a cup of hot coffee to calm him down?
Now they need to add this to the next GTA. (Score:5, Funny)
Have a Bar called "Jack's Bar" and as you walk in there is a white haired lawyer that the bouncer is int he process of throwing out.
Bouncer: Sir you are being a nuisance to the customers please leave.
Lawyer: But.... I am a prominent lawyer in the community, I was on nationwide TV for crying out loud!
Bouncer: Shutup and get out, NOW!!!
Bouncer then throws the lawyer out on his his ass, get it, "Dis-Bar-ed" LOLZ!
There is a God. (Score:5, Funny)
Jack Thompson disbarred. On my birthday.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...
Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Funny)
Thompson always wanted to own a Bar. Now, armed with multiple US Supreme Court rulings that no state bar can do what it has done to Thompson, he is set to own that Bar.
Different kind of bar?
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Funny)
"Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well... he eats you."
That kind of bar. I think.
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Interesting)
He was disbarred in Florida. Doesn't this mean he can still take the exam and be re-barred (okay, probably not the word, although anything involving Thompson and rebar sounds like fun) in any other state?
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Informative)
From what I limitedly know about the Bar (in Indiana) is that once you've been disbarred in one state, you cant reapply in any other states.
Any lawyer types care to comment?
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Same rule in health care (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about law, but in various health care professions (I keep my chiropractic license for pro bono patients) and licensed engineers (I know a few), one of the first questions they ask on any application for a license is something along the lines of
"Has your license to practice ever been suspended or revoked in this or any other jurisdiction, or has any [insert profession] board taken disciplinary action against you? If yes, please provide a detailed explaination."
That usually means that if you were booted in one jurisdiction, your chances of being licensed in another jurisdiction are sufficiently close to zero to be indistinguishable from zero for all practical purposes.
Oh, and if you are found out to have LIED on that question, your license is automatically revoked (at least in SC) and you're fined heavily. For some professions, that's even a felony and includes jail time.
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Informative)
Every state bar requires a background check before allowing anyone to sit for the bar exam. The background check of Jack Thompson would reveal the Florida disbarment, and there is approximately a zero percent chance that any state bar association would let him sit for the exam.
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. If all it took was pissing off some judges, he'd have been disbarred a long, long, LONG time ago. He demonstrated compete disregard for the legal system with meritless filings for YEARS, and as a result got exactly what he deserved.
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Funny)
All it takes is pissing of the Bar and a few judges, and you've lost what you made with 12 years of college.
To be fair, he did more than that, he did his darndest to further the stereotype of lawyers as being rabid, idiotic, greedy, power hungry attack dogs. More significantly, he was tying up a lot of time and wasting a lot of other people's money by using completely frivolous lawsuits as a soapbox. Then he was blatantly disrespectful to everyone else, even those who disagreed with him.
This isn't like being fired because you beat your boss at golf, this is like being fired because you lost your temper, took out an ad in the local newspaper saying your company kills puppies, and then took a shit on your boss' desk.
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Funny)
You sound like you've thought this through. ;-)
Cheers
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Sucks when actions have consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you think everyone should be able to do whatever the hell they want whenever they want, and if people don't like it, they can piss off?
Actions have consequences. When you screw up, you have to pay the price. I know, making people pay for their mistakes is taking away their freedom to be douchebags. Obviously these professional associations, by holding their members to certain standards, must hate our freedoms.
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Funny)
He did what with the piss of some judges?
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Re:Hrmmm.. I dont like this. (Score:5, Informative)
Even suspensions are survivable.
Jack Thompson, among other things, submitted porn to the courts, accused multiple judges of bribery in open court and public filings, violated numerous ethical rules regarding practice without a license, good character, etc. He falsely represented himself as being the lawyer for criminal victims, profited off their suffering, and then lied in court about it. He accused other lawyers of just as bad offenses, without a shred of evidence. On a more personal level, I can confirm that years ago, he physically broke into at least one lawyer's office to drop of papers and "scare" them (I know the lawyer personally).
Jack Thompson is a festering boil on the hide of the law.
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Professional Iicensing boards (Score:5, Informative)
I am speaking from my understanding as a licensed chiropractor. (I don't practice any more except for pro bono cases. I much prefer my computer-related work now.)
The _theory_ behind a professional licensing board is that members of a profession that requires extensive and specialized education are the only ones qualified to make informed judgements regarding the practice of that profession. These judgements include, but are not limited to, appropriate standards of practice including what would be considered "unprofessional conduct".
This is intended to protect the public from unqualified and/or unscrupulous practitioners. Usually, this works well. However, it is possible for the boards to become "good ol' boys' clubs" in which they are more concerned for each other than the public. Fortunately, this is usually rare. Many licensing boards include a "member of the public" (that is, someone who is _not_ licensed in the professon) in order to help prevent such abuses.
Since the licensing board controls who is licensed and, thus, who is allowed to practice the profession, unless otherwise allowed by law the highest sanction that they can impose is to bar the offender from ever practicing that profession again. Lighter sanctions (again, unless also allowed monetary damanges by law) include temporary suspension of a license for various periods of time or other license-related sanctions. I have heard of chiropractors having their licenses revoked and being required to re-apply as if a new graduate, including needing to take all of the exams again. I have also heard of chiropractors being required to take and pass classes to demonstrate an understanding of the areas that resulted in the disciplinary actions. (Fortunately, I have never been subject to disciplinary action by any licensing board.)
So, the theory is that the licensing board can revoke a license in order to protect the public from someone who is deemed unfit to practice the profession. For lawyers, for historical reasons, that licensing board is usually called the "bar" or the "bar association".
And I would _hope_ they would do thorough background checks on school teachers.
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Re:What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
Just nuke him from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
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Re:Holy cow (Score:5, Interesting)
Not gonna happen. You quote people in stories to give arguments authority (again, not to toot my own horn, but I was a journalist for two decades). The only thing Jack is good for going forward is as an example of how the people who think videogames make children commit murder are themselves crazy. How hard is it to get disbarred? John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote the opinion saying it was fine for the United States for disregard 100 years of treaties, international law, and the Geneva Convention and torture people, *he* hasn't been disbarred. Getting disbarred is really highly unusual, absent some kind of criminal conviction (like President Clinton's perjury charges). Jack's credibility is gone forever. I predict a new standard bearer against video game violence will arise: Female, mother with young children, probably calling herself doctor but with a PhD in education. You heard it here first...
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Re:Discomprehension? (Score:5, Informative)
Admission to the bar is the term commonly used in the United States to indicate that a person is licensed to practice law as an attorney at law.
Being disbarred is a gramatically correct term referring to the act of revocation of a licence to practice law.
Basically this decision means Jack Thompson is unable to earn his living as an attorney (at least in Florida) any more.
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