The Energon Pub

In a four-page written order (download here), the Florida Supreme Court today affirmed a referee's recommendation to permanently disbar controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson.

The action, which takes effect in 30 days, means that Thompson will no longer be licensed to practice law and may not apply for reinstatement. Ever.

In citing a litany of offenses, the Court noted Thompson's extensive pattern of misconduct and cited a "complete lack of remorse." The Court also quoted extensively from the June, 2008 report of Judge Dava Tunis, who served as referee at Thompson's November, 2007 trial on charges brought by the Florida Bar:

In her report, the referee states: Over a very extended period of time involving a number of totally unrelated cases and individuals, [r]espondent 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, but rather uses other means available to intimidate, harass, or bring public disrepute to those whom he perceives oppose him.

Noting that "The Court concludes that the facts, as even more extensively detailed in the referee's report, support the referee's numerous recommendations as to guilt," the justices of the Florida Supreme Court affirmed Thompson's offenses as delineated by Judge Tunis.

Some of these include findings that Thompson made false statements and accusations, repeatedly harassed those he considered opponents, and, while falsely accusing others of "the criminal distribution of sexual materials to minors," himself attached pornography to court filings.

Meverix wrote:Without directing me to a Wiki article, tell me why I should hate this guy too.

Shadowman wrote:

Meverix wrote:Without directing me to a Wiki article, tell me why I should hate this guy too.

Get a snack, this could take a while:

Jack Thompson is a lawyer, or at least, he was. (This thread means I should use past-tense)

In particular, he was viciously anti-video game. Anyone who was a gamer was inherently bad to him, he referred to many games as Murder Simulators. He's made many a frivolous lawsuit over these things.

A few years ago, he said that if someone made a game directly to his specifications (Which included the virtual deaths of several facsimiles of people he didn't like), he would pay $10,000 to the charity of Take Two Interactive's CEO's choice. When the game was made--in fact, multiple games, from several independent developers--he declared is was all just a joke. Penny Arcade donated $10,000 instead, so Jack Thompson declared harassment, somehow.

While we're on the subject of harassment, he was involved in a series of e-mails with Scott Ramsoomair of VG Cats. Near the end of the end of the conversation, he became angry with not being able to get a reaction out of Scott, and, while threatening him with a lawsuit, falsely claimed that Scott started the conversation, even after Scott forwarded him the first message in the conversation--which was from Jack.

He's attempted multiple times to blame Grand Theft Auto for any murder, even if GTA had absolutely no affect on the killer. He was quite convinced that GTA makes people killers.

He also submitted gay porn to a court record, and that's not a joke or exaggeration. It's part of the reason he's getting disbarred, along with the constant frivolous lawsuits and threats of litigation that often crossed the line into harassment.

Honestly, to gamers like myself, it's hard to see him as anything other than an evil, twisted psycho.

Meverix wrote:

Shadowman wrote:

Meverix wrote:Without directing me to a Wiki article, tell me why I should hate this guy too.

Get a snack, this could take a while:

Jack Thompson is a lawyer, or at least, he was. (This thread means I should use past-tense)

In particular, he was viciously anti-video game. Anyone who was a gamer was inherently bad to him, he referred to many games as Murder Simulators. He's made many a frivolous lawsuit over these things.

A few years ago, he said that if someone made a game directly to his specifications (Which included the virtual deaths of several facsimiles of people he didn't like), he would pay $10,000 to the charity of Take Two Interactive's CEO's choice. When the game was made--in fact, multiple games, from several independent developers--he declared is was all just a joke. Penny Arcade donated $10,000 instead, so Jack Thompson declared harassment, somehow.

While we're on the subject of harassment, he was involved in a series of e-mails with Scott Ramsoomair of VG Cats. Near the end of the end of the conversation, he became angry with not being able to get a reaction out of Scott, and, while threatening him with a lawsuit, falsely claimed that Scott started the conversation, even after Scott forwarded him the first message in the conversation--which was from Jack.

He's attempted multiple times to blame Grand Theft Auto for any murder, even if GTA had absolutely no affect on the killer. He was quite convinced that GTA makes people killers.

He also submitted gay porn to a court record, and that's not a joke or exaggeration. It's part of the reason he's getting disbarred, along with the constant frivolous lawsuits and threats of litigation that often crossed the line into harassment.

Honestly, to gamers like myself, it's hard to see him as anything other than an evil, twisted psycho.

Yeah I heard plenty of stories. I can sympathise with his views but they're not entirely correct, as with GTA (which, at least in 4, was actually pretty anti-do-bad-stuff-cos-it-will-hurt-nikos-soul).

Maybe if he'd conducted himself a little more professionally... What do I care. Bring on the video game violence.

Also, gay porn? How did he justify that?