I've always wondered how a lawyer could get away with brazenly attacking the supreme court, and the bar association in the state he's licensed. Jack Thompson, mentioned numerous times above, does just that. A lot.
02/19/2008 ORDER-SHOW CAUSE TO: JOHN BRUCE THOMPSON It appears to the Court that you have abused the legal system by submitting numerous frivolous and inappropriate filings in this Court.
Therefore, it is ordered that you shall show cause on or before March 5, 2008, why this Court should not find that you have abused the legal system process and impose upon you a sanction for abusing the legal system, including, but not limited to directing the Clerk of this Court to reject for filing any future pleadings, petitions, motions, letters, documents, or other filings submitted to this Court by you unless signed by a member of The Florida Bar other than yourself.
His response?
To the news media:
This is the single greatest gift that any court has ever given me in my 31 years of practicing law. I shall now, through a new federal lawsuit, deconstruct The Florida Bar
Thank you, Supremes! You have given me the weapons I need.
Thats right, DECONSTRUCT the Florida Bar. Good luck with that.
To the Supreme Court Themselves:
This court's panicked threat against Thompson has wonderfully proven not just that Thompson has no "adequate state remedy" but that he has no state remedy at all. This court threatens Thompson if he even files this pleading.
This is a brazen attempt by this court to repeal the absolute right of every citizen, under the First Amendment, to "petition the government for a redress" of grievances
The [Florida] Bar threatens a whistleblower with retribution because he dares to keep blowing the whistle? This court has threatened Thompson. He does not threaten back. He hereby informs this court that he will see it in federal court. This court has just thrown Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.
Norm Kent, who consistently finds his clients on the defensive from Thompson has this to say:
This is game, set, match for Mr. Thompson. The Supreme Court gave him a warning last April. Now he is going to be barred from even arguing or pleading his own case. And once the Supreme Court does this, other jurisdictions will follow suit. Looks like his only venue will be Fox News and gaming site blogs
In related news, the 2008 Game Developer's Conference in SF is going on right now. One of the more interesting panels was from Lawrence G. Walters of law firm Weston, Garrou, Walters and Mooney, cautioning about
"Junk Science" and how it affects the industry.
The concept of protecting children from inappropriate material always gets some traction. Look at the list of legislation at the federal level _ the number of bills that have the word 'children' or 'protect' in them is staggering
In the court cases, the government keeps looking for evidence to show that video games harm kids, but they have not been successful so far.
The morality and media types are forced to take a step back recently, and figure out what they're going to do and regroup a bit and maybe come up with another line of attack
This is what you're up against. You have people who will accept anything that the junk scientists try to present as fact, and try to create legislation upon it
The video game industry needs to clearly and overwhelmingly debunk these theories with its own extensive research To the extent that the industry can develop a research bank it should do so before it needs it and not at the 11th hour.
