geezzz...

The only thing that anyone can blame for their crimes is themselves....

From that same thing I linked:

In an earlier interview, Thompson's(Devin Moore) father, Kenneth Moore and Fayette County High School Principal Radford Hester told The Tuscaloosa News the teen had many discipline problems at home and school.

Kenneth Moore describes his son as someone who loved trouble, stealing
cars and dabbling in drugs.

"He was a good kid to people in town, but as soon as you get to know him
he would change for worse," Kenneth Moore said.
-------
Story from 2003 at the time of the arrest:
Kenneth Moore said he sent his son to live with the young man's mother two years ago because he couldn't control him. He said that his son would often steal his car and that last year his mother found a gun in the house belonging to him.
http://www.tremcopoliceproducts.com/fayette.htm

Note that there's zero mention of video games at all until Jacky Boy stuck his nose where it didn't belong.

Sad that he is trying to blame his reckless actions on a video game.

So are we taking bets when a certain Florida lawyer chimes in on this?

To the sane audience (Jt should also listen, but I doubt he will).


Video games are the new insanity plea, nothing more, nothing less, just a scapegoat for eveyone to exploit.

Jack thompson is making me write this post. He's influencing me to post nonsensical things and use a catchphrase at the end that demeans those whom it belongs! Someone should stop him!

with copious amounts of tears,
Hooah!

GTA made him kill cops?

That's the sorriest excuse for an excuse I ever heard.

It'd sound more plausible if he said "It wasn't me, it was the one-armed man!"

The thing is, the video game exposure is "peripheral".

The childhood abuse, plus many other emotional and personaility factors, as was true of Cho, Eric and Dylan, Gil, etc, were the primary factors of how these individuals followed their paths. "Video Games" could easily have been filled by something else, and that stimuli would have been as much to blame. "God made me do it", "Satan made me do it", "horror books made me do it", "injustice (specific or otherwise) in the world made me do it", and so on and so on. Were their abusers or their medication, or whatever to BLAME for their crimes then? No. They were to blame for the paths they followed throughout their lives, yes. But they are solely responsible for their actions in the end. They DID have choices, whether they admit them or not. Even Cody Posey had choices. As much as we can sympathize with him, he DID have choices. And he, like Moore and others who didn't die yet, are being held responsible for those choices.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

*Plants c4 in thread, hides, waits for JT*

You can't disarm people in GTA by grabbing their gun. How does he explain that GTA made him do that?

No video game has any bearing on this case. The man was a criminal who was arrested for stealing a car. He panicked and due to what seems to be a combination of lapsed concentration on behalf of the officers and desperate action on behalf of the criminal, 3 people were killed.

Childhood abuse? Sure, I'll buy that, it can have a severe impact on a person's emotional and social development. But video games? Pressing buttons to make a little imaginary man jump up and down on a screen? Please, don't make me laugh.

Interesting, it says:

"Moore, now 22, claimed the video game “Grand Theft Auto" and childhood abuse influenced his decision-making. His theory was rejected and the video game defense was disallowed during trial."

So why does he think that this will suddenly be allowed?

Also someone needs to send a letter in to the Tuscaloosa news to amend the last line in the story:

"Thompson enlisted local attorneys in the civil case because he’s not licensed in Alabama."

to include "He is also set to loose his license in an upcoming hearing in Florida."

Not to mention that the phrase “Life is a video game. Everybody has to die sometime" makes absolutely no sense. In life, you will die. In a game, there's a chance that you won't die, and in many games, you -can't- die.

What a load of crap. That's like saying Cooking Mama made me want to become a world-class chef.

*facepalms*

Who wants to bet that Mr. Thompson will completely ignore the words 'child abuse' in that article?

oh wait, Death Row. silly me: Fry him.

Yeah..... how do you get the attention of the media after killing a bunch of police? Blame Video Games, it's the latest craze.

I also figured out something based on the articles I linked to in previous comments and based on GP's archive:

-Devin Moore was arrested in June 2003
-Moore's father sent him to live with Moore's mother "two years earlier".
-Moore's father described Moore as a person who "loved trouble, stealing cars, and dabbling in drugs". Meaning that Moore was stealing cars BEFORE GTA3 was even released.

Video game exposure was the trigger for this short-term crime, but not really the basis for his homegrown personality and attitude towards authority.

People would find whatever is at hand to get motivation. Hell, if video games never existed, those Columbine students would've planned out their operation with a pen and paper RPG, and then D&D would've probably been blamed.

Even if the judge accepts the video game theory, I doubt the criminal will get a lesser sentence or even an acquital because that parallel the defense use of criminal insanity, right? And he'll have to go through psychiatric evaluation for that, of which the psychiatrists would know better than Devin about what is more influential in his actions.

I understand why we have laws regarding cruel and unusual punishment, but there are some people like Devin Moore who make me think the chair is too good for them. Cook him, gas him, inject him, whatever. Just get his punk ass outta here ASAP.

On another note, how does James Standridge sleep at night, defending the slime of humanity?

Let him fry. Even if he did get the idea from a game (which I doubt, plenty of people get these ideas on their own), that's no excuse and no reason for him to get sympathy.

Looks like we have the new "Twinkie Defense".

He should have gone with the Chewbacca defense.

The video game defense will get him nowhere.

Ha. Nice one Mr. convict, but sorry. Fail.


Take some personal responsibility. YOU committed the crime and YOU are going to die because of it. At least try to go with some dignity.

See, I would be worried if it wasn't for that pesky little thing called past criminal behavior. Swing and a miss there Moore.

GamersRyno,
Not really.

John Bruce is always bragging about his involvement. To such a point that it wouldn't be a surprise that he, John Bruce, was actually the one who suggested the idea of video games being used as scapegoats.

After all, he's tried numerous times, with little to no success, of influencing witnesses and investigations in other cases to try to get video games to be used as the sole blame for why a crime was committed. Look for criminal cases referred to on GP, among other locations, for John Bruce's involvment, in one fashion or another. One of his biggest failures to date, and others may disagree, was the Robida case. Really, you need to see that one on Wikipedia and the old GP blog from Livejournal to get the absolute stupidity of John Bruce's massacre chasing efforts. You'll notice, he never mentions it any more. Like many of his other failures.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

Lots of people have tried similar defenses. I don't think it's ever worked.

Has anyone ever tried handing a controller to these people, and asked them to play it... to go to a certain point.. to go get a certain item.. to get them to give a verbal response to an in-game scenario, including what buttons they would press to accomplish it??

can't answer? or can't do it? chances are it didn't make you do anything...

Well it seems like an idea to me...

I think a big part of this is the belief that all people are inherintly(sp?) good. The social consciousness doesn't want to come to terms with the idea that not everything is learned behavior and corruption. Even getting away from the real life examples, if people can be programmed to be good from birth, what's to say that programming can't be defective. Even from a religious point of view, who's to say God doesn't put certain people her to test our resolve.

Whatever the reasoning, people can be "defective." The human brain is a physical structure, just like anything else. If someone wasn't raised right, that's a defect in society. Hell, how you're raised directly affects the development of your brain. There's no such thing as the perfect human being.

Go find a book and see what it says about games, media, and the like. It's Everything Bad is Good For You. Not the most scholarly reading, but it puts forth some good points.

-Moore’s father described Moore as a person who “loved trouble, stealing cars, and dabbling in drugs”. Meaning that Moore was stealing cars BEFORE GTA3 was even released.


DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!

So his obsession with stealing cars drew him towards the game, not the other way around.

Seems pretty open and shut to me.

ok so lets see he was abused as a child and yet moron boy or the anti gamers just look at that as "oh well its not being beaten would cause him to do this" "Damn you those video things! Damn you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*shakes head* why cant we send all the stupid people to the moon or at least utah or something???

i remember that


what a scumbag....i'm still set on the idea the only reason jack hates rockstar was and is because he was never able to finish all the rampages in gta 3 or just never aquired 100 percent on either 3 vice and san andreas along with lcs and vcs...

pretty damn hard and so far i have 2 down and 2 left to go...

can anyone guess what 2 i finished 100 percent *que jepordy music*

It's silly for him to blame video games on he's actions.

is not*

well he already left his mark on the gta 4 story so i doubt we will hear from him on this one

Weakest excuse yet.

child abuse and gta that is the lamest exuse i have ever heard.

@Matteo

Actually, legally, he can't, as Jack was kicked off this case.

@ kurisu7885

He was kicked off the civil case, he was never an attorney in the criminal trial, even though Judge Moore told Jacky Boy to quit talking about the case at one point.

gg Moore. Giving gamers a bad name.

he could always go with what JT would use
"The Lord made me do it"

@ChaosAdvocate

[dramatic voice]
Don't forget to add that in Europe our young women are particularly prone to flights of fancy that make them faint or see things that aren't really there because of the pernicious influence of the latest fancifull and fantastic sinful passtime--Novels!(!!!)

Ward yourself and your children against the evil inherent in these new, youth-appealing and old-person-terrifying texts that aren't legitimate reading, i.e. the Bible! The minds of our young men and women are being corrupted by fantasyy and role models other than ourselves (old fogeys) and our pastors! How dare these sinful objects show the young desirable things outside of their set paths, help the downtrodden dream of better, and give our good and perfect rich children a taste for crime that couldn't possibly be due to us letting servants raise them with litlte human contact with their own parents! And fill them with romantic aspirations such as not following in their father's profession or actually marrying for love--or God forbid, women WORKING or not marrying at 14!

...And we all know that civilization came to an abrupt end only a year after books like the dangerously popular Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' put such foolish notions into the mind of the young as women gaining some self-sufficiency and enjoying sex!(!!!)
[dramatic voice/]

Coincidentally, a few random people of the time period when novels were newly en vogue for the younger generations actually acted out scenes from novels, LARPed that they were certain favorite characters in novels, and copied the actions and mannerism and attitudes of heroes or villains from novels. It was widely believed that this horrendous new thing, this "fiction" read for entertainment, of all things, was the cause of numerous copycat crimes based on the novels, with no regard for the fact that most of those crimes would have occured but simply with different details without the novels intentionally imitated.

And of course, everybody knew (wrongly) that without the novels romanticizing such inspiring or rebellious acts, the young people would never have performed the crimes and social gaffes that followed the introduction of this new genre. Even though the crime statistics didn't increase, and the crimes were unchanged (save for a few key incidences of intentional copying of novels, which generally weren't crimes but merely actions or attire frowned upon), the influence of novels was considered to have birthed all new levels of immorality and criminality. Except for with the nouveau riche, those who scandalously WORKED to become wealthy rather than inheriting money and titles the proper way.

[sarcasm]
Because obviously the descendants of noble, wealthy, or at least well-off families whose children had received such education that they COULD read novels couldn't possibly be of such low moral character or have been raised so badly by inattentive and distant parents that THEIR OWN issues or THEIR PARENTS' treatment or examples influenced their crimes (whether actual or against mores). So the only logical answer is that, because we fear this new medium, the exact same crimes that always occured but were ignored before are now cast as something new and greatly increased and terrifying--and solely due to this incomprehensible and frightening scapegoat.
[sarcasm/]

I couldn't understand some parts of this article Cop Killer Files Death Row Appeal, Says GTA Made Him Do It, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

so this chick kills people an blames a video game? that dont make sense. she should of said something better. I'm just wondering if she thought the game did afect her or if she was just using it as an excuse.

This guy is retarded. Am I the only person who noticed that in video games like GTA, bad things almost always happen to your character in the end? Seriously, your character kills hundreds of people and in the end, guess what, YOUR ASS GETS KILLED!!! I hate this guy because he says GTA made him do it but if anything, can't we all say that these games have shone us NOT to do these things?
P.S. it is ironic because when I found this sight, I had just finished playing GTA 4. Nico Bellic RULES!!!