Jack Thompson Disbarred! Oh Snap!

by John Kershaw on September 26, 2008 at 2:52 pm

mmm, justice cake

In news to be filed in the “couldn’t come soon enough” category, anti-videogame lawyer extraordinaire Jack Thompson has been disbarred, permanently.

In 30 days time, Thompson will loose all power of attorney, will not be able to practice law and will never be able to attach porn to court documents again. Summarising the court order, GamePolitics assembled the key points to Thompson’s disbarment.

[Thompson] made false statements of material fact to courts and repeatedly violated a court order
[Thompson] communicated the subject of representation directly with clients of opposing counsel
[Thompson] engaged in prohibited ex parte communications
[Thompson] publicized and sent hundreds of pages of vitriolic and disparaging missives, letters, faxes, and press releases, to the affected individuals
[Thompson] targeted an individual who was not involved with respondent in any way, merely due to “the position [the individual] holds in state and national politics”
[Thompson]falsely, recklessly, and publicly accused a judge as being amenable to the “fixing” of cases
[Thompson] sent courts inappropriate and offensive sexual materials
[Thompson] falsely and publicly accused various attorneys and their clients of engaging in a
conspiracy/enterprise involving “the criminal distribution of sexual materials to minors” and attempted to get prosecuting authorities to charge these attorneys and their clients for racketeering and extortion
[Thompson] harassed the former client of an attorney in an effort to get the client to use its influence to persuade the attorney to withdraw a defamation suit filed by the attorney against respondent
[Thompson] retaliated against attorneys who filed Bar complaints against him for his unethical conduct by asserting to their clients, government officials, politicians, the media, female lawyers in their law firm, employees, personal friends, acquaintances, and their wives, that the attorneys were criminal pornographers who objectify women.

As somebody who has spoken to Thompson in the past about his views, I can’t help but feel a slight pang of sadness over all of this. Most gamers are very quick to simply mark all of his views and opinions off as madness, taking little to no time to listen to the man. It’s true that he may take things to the extreme, but his points about selling inappropriate material to minors, and the damaging effect it can have on them, is worth thinking about.

Another angle woth a thought is that with Jack all but reduced to a Fox News talking head, is this going to be the end of anti-videogame activism? Not by a long shot, and Thomson’s departure may just be the catalyst. There are hundreds of anti-videogame groups and speakers out there, but up until now they have all been masked by Thompson’s overbearing personality and ability to be noticed. With his departure we may well begin to see a new wave of people targeting videogames.

Or maybe I’m just being pessimistic. Cake anyone?

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