game over for jack thompson

[R.A.M.]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080520-judges-report-in-jack-thompson-case-guilty-on-27-charges.html

heh

deserved it.
and yes i stole this topic from another board.

[techmaster-glitch]

broken link.

[R.A.M.]

crap spackle!

fixed

[techmaster-glitch]

Now that that's out of the way...*reads article*

It's about damn time this butthead got what was coming to him.

[Ryudo Lee]

It's about time all that bad karma came back to bite him.

[King Of Hearts]

heh. The only thing left is to disbar him... which I realy thought would be resolved earlier

[Fragmaster01]

Disbarring is obnoxiously hard unless you're committing serious, in court crimes. And in general, this works, as no one is going to want to cosign his statements out of fear they'll be charged as well.

[Valynth]

I thought Florida already disbarred him...

[Ryudo Lee]

No not yet.  They had him investigated and made him take a psych exam (which he somehow passed) a few years back back in '92, but I think they might have called for another one recently, but I don't know if it went through or not.  I believe all of this was actually instigated by the PA forums, when Jack refused to make a donation to Child's Play the ESA Foundation, to the tune of I believe $10k, after several modders made a whole game out of GTA3 to his specifications and then Gabe and Tycho turned around and made the donation in his name.  The uproar on their forums included several calls to the Florida Bar which prompted an emergency meeting about him.  I will have to search PA's archives to find the article.  It was quite amusing at the time.

EDIT: Bah, their archives are down... just great.

ANOTHER EDIT: Here's a Wired article about that donation.  And I found the original PA article too!

[Alondro]

Grand Theft Auto is evil!  It's the leftists trying to make pedophilia and bestiality legal!  IT MUST BE SO CUZ I SAID IT IS!!   

[Raffe]

Grand Theft Auto is evil!  It's the leftists trying to make pedophilia and bestiality legal!  IT MUST BE SO CUZ I SAID IT IS!!   

I still don't know where hes getting this stuff from? Is he saying that by introducing sex themes earlier, people are going to have no other alternative?

[Ryudo Lee]

Apparantly.  Because sex, stealing, and killing cops can't be found anywhere except in GTA... at least in his little world.

[Angel]

........(big smile that can't be found in the emoticons)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aFXTJQY2SY4&feature=related


Finally, that bleep is out of commission. On the minus side, now VGCats loses its best source of material...

[Caswin]

I blame under-enforced ratings.  If they were used properly, I doubt we'd be having this problem to begin with.

...and the gaming community comes down on my head... now.

[Valynth]

Actually, the problem lies with the parents who refuse to deny their precious bundle of joy the right to play any game they want.  And then the parents just leave the kid alone to muddle his way through the violence/sex/whatever with almost no supervision.

Entitlement + irresponsibility = fail.

[Alondro]

My brother has to teach the spoiled little idiots.  They know nothing and act like they are in control... which they are because if any teacher actually tries to make them learn or fails them for not doing the work, the parents sue.

God, if only they'd bring back the beatings teachers used to dish out in the good ol days...  the school of hard knocks.  Pain helps memory.  Of course, everyone in my class would end up with PTSD.   

[Jack McSlay]

bleh... to me it has yet to be proven that violent media has a really negative influence over someone.

who is more likely to commit something serious? the nerdy kid who wastes his time playing GTA, or the troubled kid who got offered drugs in school?

[RobbieThe1st]

bleh... to me it has yet to be proven that violent media has a really negative influence over someone.

who is more likely to commit something serious? the nerdy kid who wastes his time playing GTA, or the troubled kid who got offered drugs in school?

I agree.

Personally, I think the various ratings systems should be clarified a bit more, give plenty of information on the box, which I think would help a bit with allowing parents to make a well-informed choice. As it is now, its good, but not as good as it could be.

I however also think that, in today's world, after about 15 or so, the point is moot - Any game you want is available online if you can't get it in store, and who cares if its copyright infringement? Is some 15 year old who was told that he couldn't get some game which he really wants going to? I don't really think so.

I think the only thing that would help at all would be to actually make sure the kid has a good understanding of why playing that video game isn't a good idea - just saying "its bad" isn't going to convince anyone.


<_< >_>
Of cource, it could all be a conspiracy, and violent video games were invented, and marketed to teens to prevent violence... And, by the statistic that is always passed around, it seems to have worked.

Sorry if I am rambling, I am very tired now... *zzzzz*


-RobbieThe1st

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Fixed your quote. Hope you don't mind.

[Jack McSlay]

Personally, I think the various ratings systems should be clarified a bit more, give plenty of information on the box, which I think would help a bit with allowing parents to make a well-informed choice. As it is now, its good, but not as good as it could be.

certainly. telling what age the person should be to play it is ridiculous. they should point out what kind of content the game has and let the parents decide for themselves.

something that boogles my mind is that games that shows that guns and such are clearly dangerous are censored, but cartoony stuff that tells kids that it's no big deal to blast someone in the face with a shotgun are ok.

[Ryudo Lee]

Woo!  Ten years disbarment!
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/06/bar-requests-10.html

[Tapewolf]

What is really twisting the knife IMHO is this:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/06/justice-oconnor.html
A video game about the US court system.

**EDIT**
To clarify, it's not directly related to JT, but since it was announced about a day after the court requested his 10-year ban, the timing is somewhat ironic.

[Sunblink]

I think my coal-black, shriveled husk of a heart inflated six times its size at this news. Probably sometime after I giggled uncharacteristically.

In fact, I think I'll do it again.

...teehee.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Teroniss]

Hehe, I just read his objection letter to the judge preceding over the disbarment hearing. Jack compares himself to Jesus. http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=151453

Anyways, Apparently disbarment trial begins September 2nd.

[techmaster-glitch]

Good greif. I could not read all of that idiocy, had to quit after the first couple of paragraphs

[Reese Tora]

I blame under-enforced ratings.  If they were used properly, I doubt we'd be having this problem to begin with.

...and the gaming community comes down on my head... now.

As a member(though not a representative) of the gaming community, I completely agree with you.  The body of people responsible for enforcing ESRB ratings should be severely fined unless they improve thier enforcement.

Hear that, mothers, fathers, and guardians in general? Shape up or ship out, moms and dads!

The ESRB is a private company that rates games, there is no enforcement, there is no law, there is no appeal.  All ratings are recommendations and guidelines by which retailers voluntarily abide.  The ratings exist for the benefit of people who want to be able to know something about the age appropriateness of a game without playing it first, nothing more.  The ESRB, in fact, is not the only company that age rates games, but it is the industry accepted standard, and so it goes.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Woo!  Ten years disbarment!
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/06/bar-requests-10.html

I don't know if anyone else got the pong in the flash bar over the text, but so far, it's up to 14-22...

[Ryudo Lee]

Hehe, I just read his objection letter to the judge preceding over the disbarment hearing. Jack compares himself to Jesus.

And Paul Revere too!

I am also to be punished, you have concluded, for going on 60 Minutes and warning the American people, like Paul Revere, that, inspired by video games, "the murders are coming." And they have come.

I found this tidbit quite amusing...

Fifthly, you have received numerous motions to recuse, all of which have been facially and legally sufficient. The law in Florida in state court is clear as to recusal. Once you receive a motion to recuse which on its face conforms to the requirements of Florida Statute 38.10 and Rule 2.330, Florida Rules of Judicial Administration, you must withdraw from a case. You are not allowed to assess the validity of the facts in the motion. The filing of a motion that conforms to the statute mandates recusal, period.

He seems to have conveniently forgotton that a motion, even one to recuse, has to be GRANTED and then ordered for it to take any affect.  Just filing a motion doesn't mean that it's automatically ordered.  Of course, this IS Jack Thompson...

Ooh!  Ooh!  And he tries to vaguely compare the referee to WW2 Nazi's!  Or rather that the Nazi's were more efficient than the referee is.

You have been so cruel and at the same time so foolish as to call my pleadings herein "propaganda." That word means something, given how propaganda was used in the last century by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany to justify the placement of people of faith in "relocation centers" where they were starved and gassed as the "final solution" to the problem they posed. A human spirit that could do that is more than capable of doing to me what you have done.

I really wonder if any attorney would risk their career to file a lawsuit against the bar and the state of Florida on his behalf?  I certainly don't know of any.  I think that if anyone actually would go through with that lawsuit, they too would end up on the bar's chopping block.

You have chosen to ignore Dr. Wunderman's findings and The Bar's own previous findings as to why Jack Thompson does what he does, because you must: To do otherwise would have given me a hearing to which I am entitled under Florida Statute 761, called the Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act, held constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, which provides me a total defense in these Bar proceedings and which also, when they are over, gives me a cause of action against you personally and against the State of Florida. This act provides that if my actions stem from a religious impulse, then The Bar cannot discipline me for acting upon my religious impulse.

When he likened himself to Jesus, he also, in the same paragraph, claims to have "followed the Scriptural template of John the Baptist".  That's a new one on me!

...and then he compared one of the people who reviewed his actions to Stalin.  Nice.



Ah, that amused me.  I'd call that the final nail in the coffin.

The thing is, and I've worked with attorneys for years, if you go up against the bar and say the things that he's said, there's no way, not even by the letter of the law, that you're going to not get disbarred.  Even the insults being hurled at judges are enough to get him disbarred.  You don't insult judges!  They're the ones who rule on the motions that you write!  Piss off a judge, and you find yourself on the losing side of your lawsuit.  It doesn't matter what the loyalty oath says.  Those judges are human and they will act human.

[Reese Tora]

If his warning had any merit, he wouldn't be there.  Rather than Paul Revere, I think that his personage would be more closely compared to Chicken Little.

In any case I would love to hear how he justifies attacking something he doesn't understand as being his religeon. *bites tongue*

[gh0st]

first off: as a word filled christian, i would have to say that i am more than pissed at him insulting my god by comparing himself with my god. personally just for that i would have banned him from the law system for life, except of course to go to jail after going on a binge and making once again another mockery of himself.

on a different note: i think that the scariest thing is the fact that if jack Thompson had in fact kept up in gaming news, and had not been such a pretentious b***ard, and had not gone off the deep end. i think that it could have been possible for jack to eventually ban video games from the united states. especially with the way we gamers handled the situation, lucky for us the guy practically gave away his sanity.