Thompson Says Florida Bar Requested Psych Test

MBCook wrote with a link to a GamePolitics story about another chapter of the Jack Thompson saga. Sheila M. Tuma, a person associated with Thompson's Florida Bar evaluation, has requested that the colorful lawyer 'seek psychological testing and accept a 91-day suspension of his law license.'. Though they attempted to confirm this with the Bar, no one was inclined to give the site a comment. "The e-mail explaining the situation was sent to GamePolitics by Thompson himself. The recommendation comes following issues stemming from Thompson's Bully case last year where there were issues regarding his professional conduct."

Comments

What a Goof

[MightyMartian]

The man is a complete nut; an attention-seeking media addict. Who really needs psychological testing are the media outlets that continue to give this lunatic a platform.

Re:What a Goof

[endianx]

Who really needs psychological testing are the media outlets that continue to give this lunatic a platform. Like Slashdot? And you and I?

Re:What a Goof

[Enoxice]

I clicked the link. I got as far as the word "screamo" and stopped.

Re:What a Goof

[Red Flayer]

Who really needs psychological testing are the media outlets that continue to give this lunatic a platform.

Why is that? The media companies that give him an outlet make money off his attention-whoring -- they are acting quite rationally.

The real problem are the people who listen to, and believe, the demagogues -- in Thompson's case, because it's easier than addressing causes of violence other than cultural acceptance of it. This is particularly true of those in positions of power.

Going a little further, the problem (in the US) is that our electoral system + apathetic populace + corporate mass media == positive return on demagoguery. But I really don't want to get sidetracked down that road, so:

Jack Thompson is not a fool; he might even be unstable; but he fights for something he believes in, and does so pretty well, albeit via use of questionable methods. To belittle him is to belittle the effect he has on free speech issues wrt gaming, and that is a foolish thing to do. If you consider him an enemy, you should analyze his strengths as much as his weakneses.

Re:What a Goof

[MontyApollo]

After the Virginia Tech shootings, a local radio station interviewed him and kept referring to him as an "expert on school shootings" but never mentioned that his notoriety actually comes from attacking the video game industry. He slipped video game bashing into every other comment. He would talk about some school shooter and remark that he shot everybody in the head like video games train one to do, then a few comments later he would say some shooter had shot everybody 3 times each - just like video games train one to do.

Not only did the interviewer not mention his obsession with video games to begin with, he never even commented on, let alone questioned, all of the repeated video game references.

Re:What a Goof

[provigilman]

I actually think it's benificial that /. talk about his goings ons because when it gets out of line we're prepared to deal with the inevitable aftermath that I'm sure most of us see from friends, family, and co-workers who just happened to see some expert on TV the other day who said that....

Talking about Jack Thompson on GP and /. isn't giving him a "platform" anymore than talking about Hitler in history class gives nazism a "platform". This man is attacking our chosen form of entertainment, to ignore him and not talk about his would be counter-productive. 99% of the people reading these stories on GP and /. oppose Jack Thompson's efforts, so shouldn't we be as informed as possible in regards to what he's doing?

Jack Thompson is not a fool; he might even be unstable; but he fights for something he believes in, and does so pretty well, albeit via use of questionable methods. To belittle him is to belittle the effect he has on free speech issues wrt gaming, and that is a foolish thing to do. If you consider him an enemy, you should analyze his strengths as much as his weakneses.

Exactly. To ignore Jack Thompson is to allow him to go on spreading his lies to everyone who listens to him...and before you discount those who listen to him as fools who don't matter, take a look at how many bills he has helped to draft. The parents listen to him and the politicians listen to him, and those are the two groups behind the recent wave of legislation and the anti-videogames movement.

Jack Thompson depends on media support to make his point. If you've ever actually read one of his letters, you would see that it reads like a freaking resume of programs that have had him on and bills that he's helped to draft. If the Florida Bar finds that he has engaged in professional misconduct and that he is an unstable individual incapable of performing his duties as an attorney, then he could probably be stripped of his ability to practice law. Consequently, he would be stripped of his ability to use the media as a tool to his advantage.

Re:What a Goof

[MinutiaeMan]

"The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain." -- Martin Luther predicts the Internet, ca. 1530

Re:What a Goof

[Red Flayer]

I think you missed my point -- companies don't have morality. And acting within the moral code of corporate management, the morally correct action is that which maximizes profit without exposing the company to undue risk.

At any rate, you're conflating rational thought with morality. Morality often entails making irrational actions within the framework for decision-making.

Note that I'm not supporting this; nor making any kind of judgment about it -- it's just the way that it is.

Paris Hilton

[Gertlex]

Jack is such an attention whore... And we dig it just as much as the rest of the world digs Paris Hilton's everyday antics.

The two would make a good pair... Thompson and Hilton: The Publicity Whoring Masters

Re:Paris Hilton

[MrShaggy]

we could even make it a game. Have Thompson and Hilton duking it out, as they both sit in psych wards. Media attention can make you more stars. At the end of it all, we could even have them all doped up at the end. One trying to make the world an ecstasy and coke-loving paradise, the other chasing everyone down, beating them into submission with a large pointer.

Re:Paris Hilton

[The13thSin]

That's an insult to Paris Hilton.

what?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

they want him to undergo psych evaluation and so to prove he's not crazy, he goes and tells the media about it?

yeah, that sounds like a real good way to prove your sanity there, asshole. For your next trick, i suggest a chicken costume while singing opera and walking around daytona beach. That'll teach 'em to think you're crazy.

Fuckwit.

Re:what?

[Khaed]

He's not that bright of a person. He's a shifty asshole, but he's not really a smart shifty asshole. If you see the e-mails he sends out, it's very apparent that he's just... sort of a stupid guy.

I haven't believed that Jack Thompson cares much about the things he argues for in a while. I think he's just got very, very serious problems and gets off on the attention. He's like a real life, professional troll. He enjoys stirring up shit, and being in front of the camera. He likes that gamers are pissed at him. But if it wasn't gamers, it would be someone else.

By revealing this publicly, he not only gets attention, but a new round of shit storm with gamers on the web. People will post this and make fun of him and he'll jot off angry e-mails.

Been done before

[orclevegam]

He's actually been ordered to take Psych test before and he managed to pass them. The guy is a moron, but unfortunatly he's not clinically insane. What will happen this time is probably the same thing that happened last time. He'll go do the test, pass it (although probably give the psychologist giving the test some interesting data to work on), and then make a huge PR event out of the fact that he's legally sane. He's got a few screws loose, but he's not missing any of them so they can't actually diagnose him with anything. They need to just disbar the guy and have done with it.

Re:Been done before

[UncleTogie]

Actually, according to this link, he's presently not allowed to practice law in Florida. One state down, 49 to go!

Re:Been done before

[Darth]

You are incorrect. This is his actual entry on the florida bar member search page :

http://www.floridabar.org/names.nsf/All/07D0790038 98F95585256A830051348B?OpenDocument

as you can see, he is still eligible to practice law in florida.

(if he weren't, there would be no need to give him a 90 day suspension)

Re:Been done before

[bigbigbison]

Yes. The "jack e thompson" listed on that page is not eligible to practice law in Florida because he is dead. The Jack Thompson that hates videogames is not only quite alive but is legally named John Bruce Thompson. John Bruce Thompson is still eligible to practice law in Florida.

Re:Been done before

[WilliamSChips]

It would be so awesome if a judge told Jack Thompson that he couldn't practice law in Florida due to being dead.

Eh, this is going nowhere fast

[Steeltalon]

Psychological examination probably won't prove anything and his mental acuity isn't even really the thing that seems to cause problems. It is his professional demeanor or lack of therin. His conduct is unacceptable and his disbarment should be based on that. I'm sure that they're just hoping that he fails in order to give them "solid" justification to get rid of him.

That makes sense.

[Valdrax]

And we dig it just as much as the rest of the world digs Paris Hilton's everyday antics.

Really? I thought that Paris Hilton got so much attention was because there were people who actually liked her.
That argument actually makes a lot more sense than the impression I had.

I don't know. I've never been able to understand celebrity worship.

Re:That makes sense.

[Valdrax]

Well, on one level I don't understand celebrity worship, but really, I think almost everybody has their celebrities. For most/many/some slashdotters they may not be actors, but it could be Joss Whedon, Linus Torvalds, Theo de Raadt, ESR, Richard Stallman, and even--as the GP mentioned--Thompson. Same kind of celebrity tracking, just a different kind of celebrity! (I'm think of names I see fairly regularly on slashdot..)

Well, yeah, I care about their newsworthy actions because they are usually doing something that affects my life (or at least the products I buy and use).

But I don't care about their marriages, their divorces, their kids (adopted or not), the cars they drive, the clothes they wear, the houses the live in, the vacations they take, or any of the rest of that stuff that shows up in the tabloids, in the entertainment section of the news, or in People magazine. As far as I'm concerned, the entertainment section of any cable news half hour is just 5 minutes of important news about the world events and political decisions that affect our lives that's not getting covered.

I mean, I care about what movies Brad Pitt's gonna star in 'cause he's one of my favorite actors, but I'd really rather be punched in the face than hear the term "Brangelina" EVER again in my life. That's the sort of nonsense I just don't understand. People who pin their hopes and dreams on mundane details of the daily lives of people they'll never personally know disappoint me.

Of course, I'm almost certainly preaching to the choir here on Slashdot.

It all depends:

[Cadallin]

I have some knowledge about State Bar Association Ethics Boards, from first hand accounts. It all depends on what they want to know. In the case I know about, the guy being investigated got to pick two doctors, the Board one. His Doctor's testified that he "was not a threat to himself or others" which is doctor-speak for "I couldn't justify to a judge having him involuntarily committed." It doesn't mean any more than that. Fortunately the Ethics board was well aware of that. When asked if they believed he would do the things things that prompted the inquiry again, they admitted it was possible (in the usual non-committal sort of way, but lawyers, unlike juries, understand what that stuff means). The Board's Doctor said the same things in a more formal kind of way. The Board recommended in their report to the State Supreme Court, that he not have his license ever reinstated (he had already been suspended from practicing law due to his actions).

It really depends on the Board. I think its very possible, given his previous history of warnings in the Florida legal system, that Thompson is about to get slapped pretty hard. They aren't happy with him already. As I said, he's received a number of warnings, and has been removed from cases by judges for his behavior.

Does he have to be nuts to be disbarred?

[phorm]

Why the psychiatric angle at all? Can't he be barred for "Extremely unprofessional behavior not appropriate of a member of the bar" or something along those lines?

It does still say he's a "member in good standing" though, I wonder if you can be a member in poor standard or the alternative is to just be disbarred?