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Judge Recommends Guilty Verdict for Jack Thompson
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."
GTA4 has sold over 3.6 million copies. Even if lawyers didn't like to brutally advance their careers through any means necessary, I would expect at least some of these sales to be to lawyers.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
The judges did sign their oaths. Jack alleges that Tunis forged her own signature, which is certainly a pretty novel theory, but if we decide to be more generous than the law even allows and take him at his intended meaning, that she had someone else sign for her, he doesn't have a single iota of supporting evidence, other than the worthless opinion of an utterly discredited "handwriting analyst" who made his opinion based on a whopping two samples.
... I couldn't make these great names up) who may be going after him for libel next.
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
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Well what'd you expect? There is no body of video game related laws that for someone to violate. Much of the nonsense that he's perpetrated has been as a result of the bizarre war he's trying to wage against games.
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.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest