Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Jack Thompson: The Legal Decline

Game Politics broke this story last week:

The judge who presided over Jack Thompson's Florida Bar trial late last year has recommended that the controversial attorney be found guilty on 27 of 31 professional misconduct charges. The Florida Supreme Court must now rule on those recommendations.

...Among the Florida Bar offenses for which Judge Tunis has recommended a guilty verdict:
-Knowingly making a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal
-Knowingly disobeying an obligation under the rules of a tribunal
-Communicating the merits of the case with a judge before whom the proceeding is pending
-Using means that have no purpose other than to embarrass, delay or burden a third person
-Engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation
-Engaging in conduct in connection with the practice of law that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, including to knowingly or through callous indifference disparage or humiliate litigants or other lawyers
-Making statements that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge

Judge Tunis's full report to the Florida Supreme Court is due on September 2nd. In the meantime, a disciplinary hearing regarding possible sanctions against Thompson will be held before Judge Tunis on June 4th.

Didn't we all know this was coming? No matter how many appearances Thompson made on easily-duped news networks, it's always been clear that the one place Thompson has rarely been successful is in the courtroom, where bullshit can't sprout wings. It's also been clear that clicking out inflammatory sound bites like a rabid Pez dispenser was going to get him into serious legal trouble, because he could never turn himself off.

I don't even know who Jack Thompson is, really--most of his television appearances seem like some kind of bizarre self-parody. It's hard to imagine there's a real person inside that self-promoting husk.

Trainwreck, party of one.

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