November 21, 2007
Late yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Adalberto Jordan dismissed (24-page pdf) John Thompson vs. Florida Bar, et al, Miami attorney Jack Thompson's civil rights claim against the agency which regulates Florida's legal practitioners.The ruling clears the way for Thompson's Bar disciplinary trial to begin on November 26th before a referee appointed by the Florida Supreme Court.
In a ruling issued earlier yesterday, Judge Jordan also denied Thompson's motion (3-page pdf) to add me as a defendant in the case. While Judge Jordan did not mention the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), which Thompson also sought to add as a defendant, it's a moot point since the entire case has now gone away.
In response, Thompson has filed a notice that he intends to appeal Judge Jordan's decision. In addition, he has filed an emergency request with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court to stay next week's Bar trial.
UPDATE: Judge Jordan has denied Thompson's request for a stay. The 11th Circuit has denied several other requests... Looks like this one is over.
Comments
We could all chip in a nickel and buy him new stationary...
"From the Desk of Jack Thompson, Disbarred Attorney"
In many ways, this is the worst possible way for him to be kicked out, it's not because of anything intangible, he himself wrote hate letters to all and sundry, this cannot be made to look like some kind of constructive dismissal because there is quite simply far too much evidence to the contrary.
Jack won't go away, but I feel it will be much harder for him to play his martyr card than he thinks it will be.
Mr. Thompson, in short, has been given the opportunity to confront and question his accusers. [but has chosen not to do so]
Actually, I think apart from some extreme groups, Thompson has burned a vast number of his prospect-bridges, because he couldn't resist the urge to have the last venom-soaked word. I don't doubt we will see him around, but I don't think he'll be quite as popular as people believe.
“Guys, be realistic. Jack’s not going to go away. He’s either going to latch onto some watchdog like Common Sense Media, or he’ll be a frothing civic protestor “unchained” by the rules of decorum he labored under while employed as a lawyer. ”
Ah, but his two biggest lawsuits (Strickland v. Sony (ongoing), James v. Meow Media (dismissed)) , were both filed on behalf of others. If he's disbarred, the best he can do is local Florida "nuisance" lawsuits.
So while he won't go away, he'll fade into the fringe and be more easily ignored.
"The gaming industry tried to silence me and destroy my reputation, but I survived! That means I'm right and they're the bad guys."
"The gaming industry tried to silence me and destroy my reputation, and they succeeded! That means they're scared of me because they know I'm right, and they're the bad guys."
Vocal critics always win. They're either victorious or a victim.
"@Grey, whilst true to a degree, it needs to be understood that most of the complaints that are going against Thompson are not from the gaming Industry. Several judges, a number of law firms, but no gaming companies."
I agree with you that it is his professional conduct which is costing him his license and not the game industry; however, that isn't how he will spin it in the press. And if the media hasn't checked into the truth behind his claims yet, I see no reason for them to start now. He will claim to be a victim and an uninformed public will see him as such.
He's going to pull a Ben Kenobi on us.
"Former Attorney Jack Thompson" has such a nice ring to it.
2) Jack got owned repeatedly in the denial of his 100 (or so) motions.
3) The suit against GP denied with prejudice. Nice!
4) I suspect that Jack's appeal attempt on the basis of "everything he said was wrong" isn't going to go far. (Lawyers with real law degrees cite examples.)
I suspect that the "missing" psych evaluation that Jack does cite is that Jack attached a summary and not an entire evaluation. No way to verify on any of this.
I also liked how Judge Jordan still managed to destroy Jack's arguments even by "assuming everything Jack said was correct," which we all know it isn't especially when Jack is saying "I did nothing wrong." Hilarious.
That flushing sound Jack hears is his lawyering license going right down the toilet.
I know, scary isn't it, I think the natural state of humanity is one of deep suspicion, but what with martian bunnies etc, it's all been going a bit crazy lately.....
Think of all the entertainment we'd miss otherwise, I mean those court documents make a great read.... =)
An entity losing badly against a cause is always going to empower it more than any PR campaign or study ever will. A boxer can boast as much as he want about how tough he is, but his strength can only be proven after several fights. The VG industry needed Thompson for some rounds, to prove that the prejudice isn't true, that ganes don't teach murder and that they don't have a major detrimental effect on the public.
I do wish that he'd been more constructive, because between his attitude, conjecture and extremely loose arguments & proof, he's not quite enough to set a baseline on. It'd been better if he was a brilliant lawyer using every possible good, solid argument backed up with the best proof available and lost the cases, because then that'd be it for today. Until virtual reality and full body joysticks come about.
Jack Thompson just can't get a break can he?!
And if he does, he doesn't deserve one.
Ah well. I guess having to type "Thompson" over and over would get to you.
Yes, he'll sue himself for malpractice.
I will miss him though, as Voltaire once said, "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it. "
Maintain the rage John Bruce. Do not go quietly into the night ... ah who am I kidding?! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!!
Delta, that's exactly what Jordan is saying. A federal court cannot intervene in a state court proceeding unless there is a compelling reason. Jack's compelling reason of "the Bar is picking on me!" is not sufficient. They're picking on him because people filed complaints. Jack is more than welcome to file for relief AFTER his bar trial and a federal court can examine the case to see if Jack's rights were violated.
As far as Jack not knowing what he's charged with goes, that's simply hogwash. Dennis had a link to a document some months ago outlining about 40 different accusations from JUST ONE CASE that Jack was being charged with. It's a public document and it was given to Jack. If he didn't read it (possible) or didn't comprehend it (more than likely), that's his own doing. The fact that he brought up things that he was charged with in his own filings while claiming he doesn't know what he's charged with seems a bit off, don't you think? Judge Jordan thought so, too.
"That’s why I’m not of the opinion that minors should be prevented from getting M rated games, but rather that parents should prevent their children from getting games that they do no wish them to get. Fortunately, enforcing the age-ratings, particularly on mature content goes a long ways towards helping parents with this as their kids get stuck running anything that might be questionable past parental review."
I agree. I think that was the point I was trying to make with the comment about my nephews. (Sorry if I was not clear.) Halo 2 is a mature rated game, and I was initially opposed to letting them play it in my house, until I spoke to their parents who let me know that they were all right with it, because they had talked to their children about it and believed they were mature enough to handle it.
I did appreciate your comments. Thank you.
@bakaohki
Thanks! Sometimes the words just gel together.
@Attack Gypsy
I'm pretty certain he can't/won't answer that question if he has.
If that's the case, then I'm guessing Jack just thought it was a convenient way to hassle Dennis more. How professional. Er, not.
They probably wouldn't keep the person who tipped them off informed as to what they're doing about it though, would they? Meaning that .Jack//Thompson has no idea what, if any, action was taken.
Hey Dennis, I'm volunteering my services as a PHP coder to make you a custom "preview" button. Takes the information from the text box, opens up a pop-up, and displays what the post would look like. Just lemme know.
One thing I absolutely hate is seeing people skew the Bible's teachings to forward their own agendas. Unfortunately, this is what a lot of 'Christians' do, and it gives the ones who genuinely do believe, even if only in their own way, the ones who don't want to preach and try to convert and outwardly judge others, a bad name.
*Queue Pandralisk in 5 . . .4 . . . 3 . . *
Christians are not all jerks who use the Bible for their own gains. The few who do act like this give the rest of us a bad name. Thompson is one of these people, and I'm glad that CK20XX took the time out that was necessary to expose Thompson, once again, for the snake he truly is.
Oh well, here's hoping we all enjoyed our brief respite.
Not that I want to defend Jack at all (the thought of which makes my skin crawl), but kilometer is an accepted and standard spelling of kilometre in the US. So much so that on my spell check plugin for firefox kilometre is underlined as being misspelled while kilometer isn't underlined.
You're probably right - maybe it just slowed the spin down a little, which is actually fairly hard to do since all of his comments lack substance.
@Mattie
D'you suppose you can roast marshmallows over the remains of his career?
Actually, if I recall correctly, it's not the first time he's contavted the Secret Service to report death threats in order to have them do his dirty work for him. He's done it before. Only difference, as I recall, was the alleged threat was against one of them Bushes (either Papa or Baby) and, of course, Jack's intended victim was someone other than GP.
Unban Jack. Set up a smaller blog account of some kind, such as livejournal Post all of Jack's posts and public emails, verbatim, to that blog as new entries, with comments enabled. Direct him to it each time he contacts you or posts on GP instead of there. Then, after a week, ban him again. He will naturally go to where his audience (the adoring fans like me and those who are in denial like a lot of you) can still see him yell without him constantly reconnecting to the internet for new IPs (or whatever method of ban evasion he's using).
Everyone still gets to laugh at him, Jack still gets to argue, anybody who replies to him on this board can be hit with a no-tolerance policy of message deletion/editing (with this policy posted on the front page, of course), everybody lives happily ever after.
This site doesn't need Jack, but as long as it has the same people visiting it who have visited it from the start, it will never outgrow him. Make a separate garden for the flowers and vegetables that attract the most insects.
Please?
You know, Dennis did report your case accurately. Since it was obvious you weren't going to win it, the abstention doctrine was about the only way you were going to lose it. The whole point of your case was that the court should override the abstention doctrine and act in your behalf pre-emptively. This was denied. If it was really as unnecessary as you're claiming now in order to spin, you wouldn't have filed it.
You also wouldn't be filing a similar case in Alabama, which you will also lose due to no good reason to override abstention.
Also, numerous posters have shot down your references to "finishing the race". When he was known as Saul, Paul *was* a lot like you. He committed some of the vilest acts in the name of serving God. When Christ showed him the light and he became Paul, his heart softened and he truly followed what Jesus commanded (love the Lord your God with all your strength and your neighbor as yourself).
Strauss Zelnick is your neighbor, Jack. Dennis is your neighbor, Jack. We are your neighbor, Jack. Your heart cannot be so hardened and twisted with hate if you want to really profess the name of Christ. Christ will not know you.
BTW, if you were actually a competent lawyer, you'd know "freedom of speech" is a guaranteed right for only one person on this site, Dennis. Asserting you have freedom of speech here is like me saying I have freedom to give a speech about how much you suck inside your living room.
You could start your own blog, but let's face it. You'd be banning people on sight for disagreeing with you... or for making points you can't refute.
Like... when are you going to reimburse states for money they lost in legal fees defending un-Constitutional bills that you wrote?
@Dennis
Now he's actually calling the Secret Service?
My advice, Dennis... cyberstalking isn't just a civil matter, it's a criminal one. This has been continually getting worse.
I would honestly consider going to your local police station and swearing out a complaint against him. There's enough evidence to indicate that it isn't just some sour grapes thing, but that he is obsessed and sick.
Except Jack is worried about the psychological issues. He's just in it for the moolah. Every other political agenda he's had was sure to pay him if he won.
By the way, if you are a gamer, why don't you tell me what exactly is Jack Thompson's goal?
This is why I said to check his wikiquote. Sure, anyone can edit it, but when each quote comes with it's source, I think it's more that trustworthy.