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Judge Recommends Guilty Verdict for Jack Thompson
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed May 21, 2008 01:03 PM
from the pariahs-that-still-get-airtime dept.
from the pariahs-that-still-get-airtime dept.
GamePolitics is reporting that a Florida Judge has recommended that Jack Thompson be found guilty on 27 of 31 counts of misconduct and is awaiting a Florida Supreme Court verdict to back him up. Thompson is striking back with allegations against the Judge and others, complaining that loyalty oaths were never signed. "Tunis made 21 recommendations of guilt in relation to Thompson's participation in Strickland vs. Sony, an Alabama case in which the anti-game attorney represented the families of two police officers and a police dispatcher slain by 18-year-old Grand Theft Auto player Devin Moore. Tunis also recommended that Thompson be found guilty on four out of five counts relating to his 2006 attempt to have Rockstar's Bully declared a public nuisance in a case before Miami Judge Ronald Friedman. An additional two guilty counts stemmed from a non-video game matter."
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Jack Thompson's Letter To Take-Two Exec's Mother 351 comments
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Games: Referee Recommends Disbarment For Jack Thompson 139 comments
spielermacher writes "GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson — the lawyer every gamer loves to hate — has apparently lost his court case and is facing disbarment. The Referee in the case has gone beyond the Florida Bar's request for a 10-year disbarment and is recommending a lifetime ban. From the Final Report issued by the court: '... the Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior ...' All I can say is that it's about time."
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Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, he hates the 1st Amendment, and isn't afraid to make a ridicules lawsuit to try and censor people.
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's sort of like saying "Al-Quaeda hates freedom" -- I don't think Thompson hates the first amendment, it is just (in his mind) trumped by other values. He has further picked a particularly poor method for promoting his values.
To be more technically correct (and as this is slashdot, that's the best kind of correct), I'd say he believes that video games (and other media) containing sexual or violent content are the root of all evil, and that he'd rather have no video games (or other media) than the possibility that the games could contain sexual or violent content.
This particular story relates to disbarment proceedings against the man for repeated poor (and illegal) conduct.
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, seriously.
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I'll Tell You Who He Is (Score:5, Insightful)
A man who stood up on Fox news the day of the Virginia Tech shootings [cnet.com] (when the bodies of slain students were still warm) and told the nation that he was certain we would find video games in the shooter's bedroom. He then later turned one of the funerals into a media circus and photo op.
A man who has overstepped laws designed to give Americans freedom and the right to enjoy entertainment in their homes. He has taken the The Bill of Rights into the restroom and wiped his ass with it.
A man who, after overstepping his bounds an pushing extreme values of the political Right, asked for members of the Bush family (which he erroneously thought would be allies) to remove his disbarment [wikipedia.org] from the Florida courts. Name Jeb & George [slashdot.org]
You have a man who has tried to undo the separation of church and state. This same man has been operating in a court of law and using false correlations while pushing his own moral and religious beliefs. He is completely divorced from the sense of Justice and the American People. This same man will soon suffer under The Justice of The United States of America or my faith in it will soon falter
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, maybe I ought to thank Mr. Thompson. If I ever get busted for smoking pot, gambling, or soliciting a prostitute I'll just blame GTA!
Did you know that Mr. Thompson's middle name is "Golf"?
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Gotta love Jack (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gotta love Jack (Score:5, Insightful)
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Judge's Ruling (Score:5, Funny)
GTA Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Site down / moving? (Score:5, Informative)
Ars has a writeup that's a summary of GP's: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080520-judges-report-in-jack-thompson-case-guilty-on-27-charges.html [arstechnica.com]
Still framing the issue THEIR way (Score:5, Insightful)
You could have also phrased that as, "..police dispatcher slain by 18-year-old fluoridated-water drinker Devin Moore."
I've had a really bad day today (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yea, and I want to thank Jack Thompson [uncyclopedia.org] too, since if he wasn't such a stupid, obnoxious, self-serving buffoon this story would have never made it to slashdot!
My life is SO filled with coincidences. Last night at Felber's one of the ladies there called me a "fuckmonkey" (in regards to my bringing Amy there half an hour before taking Tami there), I just got back fro Top Cat's, where today's drink special is the "Drunk Monkey", and now the Jack Thompson story brought to us by Scuttlemonkey!
Weird. But not as weird as Jack Thompson.
...at Law.com (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202421556225 [law.com]
Re:Not trying to defend Jack (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Slashdotted already? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:As a Lawyer Friend Of Mine Once Said... (Score:5, Insightful)
If facts aren't on your side, pound on the law. If the law isn't on your side, pound on the facts. If neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound on the table.
That describes JT more accurately. Procedurally, he's a moron -- he's actually gotten himself barred from filing directly to the Florida Supreme Court. Then again he's not exactly that sharp when it comes to facts or law either.
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Re:"loyalty oaths were never signed" (Score:5, Interesting)
Accusing judges of malfeasance is just standard behavior for Jack Thompson. And his probable disbarment is just the start of his troubles -- there's one Cletus Junkin in Alabama (yeah I know
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Re:Just two counts? (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue isn't just that some guy doesn't like video games, it's that he's not only embarked on some sort of loony campaign against them, but he's also abused the legal system to harass video game developers and publishers. And he's also made sweeping, negative, and sometimes offensive generalizations about an entire branch of media and the millions of people who consume said media.
Whether this guy is unethical enough to purposely crap all over the legal system over something like video games, or whether he's just plain insane, either way he should not be practicing law. And he certainly shouldn't be wasting tax dollars on his bizarre personal crusade against a bunch of gamers. The legal system is better off without him, regardless of his views on video games or anything else. He's pretty much proven that he has no respect for the proper functioning of the courts/etc.
And third, this guy has managed to convince various media outlets that he is a credible expert on video games. Having an opinion on something does not make you a credible voice. We can only hope that whatever the end result of all this is, news programs will stop asking him to share his thoughts on video games or anything else.
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