Well, if Jack's little 'running for judge' trick does pay off then there's hardly any hiding the fact he did it to avoid having to face up to his own actions.

That, in itself, suggests fore-knowledge of guilt.

Wow. Can't act like an adult for even 5 minutes can we jack. Since the judge filed a complaint with the Florida Bar, I'm not disappointed with him recusing himself. I've been thinking for a while now that this game was going to be jack's professional downfall.

This whole thing turnes really nasty didn't it? It's just as bad as that mess in Louisiana. It seems like things always get heated up when Jack's involved.

I'm sure he has no want to be a judge. He's just useing candidacy in a attempt to get of the hook. After all he's done when the going gets tough he runs away and slings mud at his opponent like a monkey. It's his tactic pick a big topic/name sue if it starts to turn bail, then insult opponent, then claim a victory. rinse and repeate.
JT is just a type of legal bully.

@Daniel F:

Considering Jack has openly admitted that he wants Take-Two to be taken to court so often that they'll go out of business, I'm pretty surprised myself that they only now have started fighting back.

Now that I think about it, JT's comment about TT in court eerily mirrors Lik-Sang closing down due to the multiple lawsuits Sony had filed against it. o.o

If the judge had merely recused himself, I'd have been disappointed. But, considering he made the statement that he had filed a Bar complaint, I can accept that.

What would have been funnier, however, is if instead of a fine or jail time, John Bruce had been sentenced to a week in a psychiatric care facility. True, it may not be the kind of sentence that can be passed on contempt charges. But after the stunt John Bruce pulled in the court room today, let alone in the previous hearing, does anyone think that a judge won't go for setting a precidence?

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

I think many of us are hoping this guy really gets thrown in the can. He is a major...Well, jackass. I think issuing threats to people like a 1970's comic book villan is enough to be considered in contempt of court--don't you?

So if you don't like the judge, declare candidacy against said judge to get off the hook? Sounds like a legal loophole, but he's going to have to explain his actions before a judge.

I suspect any judge that ends up taking this case isn't going to be thrilled with his antics.

Wouldn't Jacky Boy have to qualify for the election first before he's officially considered a candidate? The qualification process doesn't take place until a few months before the election.

Jack Thompson seems to be trying to go down in a blaze of glory. At least, he'll go down in a blaze.

My only advice:
Prepare for the worst coward!
This time, you can't run.

Today was also his deadline for the ESRB to change the rating of Bully to M "or else".

Methinks he'll be a bit too busy now to follow through on that threat.

To be honest, the judge probably should recuse himself now. The fact that Thompson has come out and said he's going to run for the judge's seat on the bench could be seen to create a situation where the judge's "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

That said, Jack's actions here are probably another thing for the ethics committee of the Florida Bar Association to look into.

VG-Robot Says:

"... I think issuing threats to people like a 1970’s comic book villan..."

He was Jack Thompson, outspoken anti-video game activist - until an accidental dose of Energy X twisted his mind and imbued his harsh rhetoric and lawsuits with superhuman potency! His was the power to file a lawsuit anywhere, at any time, attributing any criminal activity to video games. Now, the world that refused to listen to his warnings will suffer the wrath of...
THE LITIGATOR!!!!

When you can't get justice because you're not in the legal right, cheat and do everything you can to make a big fuss about it and maybe get the whole case thrown out or appealed because you don't want to be wrong. And thats what I learned from Jack Thompson about being a lawyer.

I hope the judge throws the book at Jack, because this is just Jack trying to get his way even thogh he's been repeatedly rejected with a plithora of court case failures. Oh one could only hope that the Florida Bar hears about this. *hopeshopeshopes*

*Sees Half-Life 2*
Good luck there Gordon *cough* Jack.
You're gonna need it.

@ nightwng2000, these are excellent points, I'd love to hear their answers.

Has anyone sent the Florida Bar a copy of his rant against the judge? I thought the bar associations really frown on such abuses?

@playfulpuppy

I think Jack's odds are seriously lower than that. More like 5:1. And I don't think Friedman will recuse himself either. From what I read on the Oct. 13 ruling, it was pretty clear that he could see through Jack's BS and had little patience for him after watching Bully' gameplay footage. From what I read, his disposition suggested something along the lines of, "This moron made me waste four hours of my life to see this?!"

Friedman seems like an intelligent man, and as such I think he recongnizes JT's bullying tactics for what they are. In fact, it'll probably make him dig in his heels even more.

Besides, why should he even recuse himself? Since Jack refused to appeal that day, shouldn't his ruling on the matter be considered final?

Unless Jack pulls some kind of legal hocus pocus out of his ass at the eleventh hour like he sometimes does and manages to wriggle away, I seriously doubt he'll come away from this unscathed. I don't see this as any kind of win for him. I said once before that the Bully case marked the beginning of the end for him, and so far it appears I've been right.

Okay, he announces is during a case in which this judge is the appointed judge and expects him to step down? Jack will probably withdraw the announcement when the case is over. Screw him, and his bullying ways, send him to jail.

I suspect the Bar association is watching this pretty closely. Remember that Judges are almost always senior members of the Bar (they're basically very senior lawyers after all, and while they don't always -have- to be members it's the best way to keep in close touch with the legal community).

Well, first off, congrats on the..buying out thing, Dennis.

And about Jack? Well. We'll see.

Is there more information on what the grounds are? GPs last column on this speculated as to the reasons, but didn't actually confirm anything. And it would seem a little odd if it was JT's comments after the trial. surely these would have been dealt with there and then, probably just by a warning from the judge.

@ Bissel:
Best. Analogy. EVER!!! Next to the one about the shoe... Yeah... Hehe, shoes.
------
Even if Jack does get held in contempt of court, we'll still have to deal with the other government officials and what have you who are also against video games. But at least the others are acting like crazed religious fanatics in court.

I imagine it all boils down to timing. If JT announces his candidacy after the motion, then I believe it would be a clear case of him attempting to futz with the court, which I believe should go against him. If the motion was filed after JT announced, then the judge should recluse himself, because he's accepting to investigate JT potentially based on the fact that he's running for office.

I guess it would be best if Friedman reclused himself anyway, just to stop the whining, but still with those comments JT made at the judge, heard by many witnesses, it would be easy for another judge to see why contempt might be a valid complaint.

He's not planning to actually run for judge at all. What a dirtbag. The irony of claims to be "saving the children" by one of the sleaziest, narcisistic, holier-than-thou egomaniacs is more than bearable by me. Every time I think about it I black out and wake up on the freeway median eating gravel.

Today was also his deadline for the ESRB to change the rating of Bully to M “or else”.
One can't help but wonder what his "else" was. Granted, I think Jack's record at following through with these timelines of veiled threats is at best 2 out of 3.

@Benji
Freedom Force FTW!
I still need to play the second one.

I'm not sure where filling to run for a judge's seat takes place, or if that department even controls policy/procedure or not. I thought about asking the court itself, but wasn't sure if they would know for certain or not. Might seem reasonable, but wasn't sure since it's an attorney who would be running. I'm not even certain if having been an attorney is a requirement to run for any particular seat in the court. So I figured the FL Bar might know, considering all their rules and regulations.

But, yeah, I figured Tom B. or Mark might know, at least if it were a national or state to state issue as to policy/procedure.

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

Oh, and that lawyer comment doesn't apply to all lawyers. I know there are plenty of great ones out there.

You should have a tag for "Fall 2006 Florida Bully trial" or something. I want to send my brother (who's in law school) a link to the rather bizarre history of this particular trial.

I don't know about numerical probabilities. But I'll hazard this guess:

Judge won't (and shouldn't) recuse himself.

John Bruce is slapped with a $500 fine.
John Bruce blathers something stupid.
John Bruce is slapped with a $1000 fine.
John Bruce blathers again.
John Bruce is sent to jail for short time.
Beyond that, I have no guess.

But I think fine is the highest probability. And considering John Bruce's blatherings to date, I'd say it'd be highly unlikely that he'd keep his mouth shut.

Nor do I think he will win any appeal, though it may not be denied outright as his previous appeal appeared to be.

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

He sent this to Kotaku

Immediate News Release - October 25, 2006

Is Miami Attorney and Video Game Critic Going to Jail Today for Contempt?

Take-Two, the makers of Grand Theft Auto games and the Columbine simulation game Bully, are the great defenders of their "First Amendment right" to market and sell mature video games to children. Bully, for example, according to the world's leading authority on the harm caused by violent games to kids--Dr. David Walsh of the Institute on Media and the Family--has weighed in on Bully and stated, categorically, that this game has been incorrectly rated by the ESRB and should have been rated "Mature." As a result of this fraud, Bully is being sold to children as young as ten around the country. Walsh says this game clearly teaches kids to be violent in response to bullying. Columbine's Klebold and Harris would be proud.

Two weeks ago, Miami attorney Jack Thompson, the nation's leading critic of the sale of violent video games to children, sought an injunction in Florida courts preventing the sale of Bully under existing nuisance laws. It turns out, now that experts have played the game, that it is even more violent than Thompson knew. The game routinely rewards the use of explosives, slingshots point blank to the face, and the crushing of craniums with baseball bats and metal fire extinguishers. All of this rewarded violence is by the game's hero "Jimmy Hopkins." Take-Two has lied about what is in the game, and now the lies have been proven. Thompson will be back in court to secure the injunction he sought earlier, and he will now get it.

However, there is first something going on in a court room today. The Miami Judge who unleashed Bully on America's children is Ronald M. Friedman, who had promised and ordered a full review of the game to its conclusion. He violated that order. He allowed paid employees of Take-Two to take him on a guided tour of the game, with no cross-examination by Thompson, in which they falsely told the Judge how nonviolent the game was and that violence is uniformly punished in the game. All lies. Finally, the judge violated his own order by publicly and falsely describing the content of the game before its public release. The judge violated another order by refusing to conduct a hearing on all this, as he had promised on October 12.

As a result of the Judge's multiple errors and violations of his own orders, Thompson took an appeal of his flawed decision and explained to the appellate court and to the media what really happened. As a result, Take-Two has asked this same Judge Friedman to fine Thompson or throw him in jail for being "disrespectful" of this Judge.

This Judge is apparently delighted by the prospect of throwing into jail the party who blew the whistle on his judicial misconduct. Today, at 4pm, on the 13th floor of the Dade County Courthouse, Jack Thompson is being asked to explain to Judge Friedman why he should not be held in contempt and thrown into jail.

The Take-Two lawyers asking for this are the delightful folks at Blank Rome who are a) the registered lobbyists in the US Senate and House for Take-Two, and b) the largest bundlers of campaign cash contributions to President Bush. This is the same President Bush who invited Jack Thompson to his Presidential School Violence Summit two weeks ago because of Thompson's expertise on the link between violent games like Bully and school massacres.

What this Judge is doing violates 18 USC 241, which prohibits any state official from using his authority to infringe upon the Constitutional rights of a citizen.

Jack Thompson may be going to jail today upon the request of people who claim the First Amendment protects the sale of pornography to children but does not protect public debate about that distribution.

By the way, Bully contains homosexual activities between Jimmy Hopkins and other male students. Is this a great country or what?

I love the closing homophobic comments, it renders the entire rest of his release pointless.

I wonder if Jack has ever kissed his son goodbye in the morning, and whether he considers that 'homosexual activity', after all, all that happens in Bullying is that you can kiss another boy. The Sims 2 has been Teen rated for several years and allows full same-sex relationships, it even allows two men or women to adopt a child....shock horror!!

Gotta love how he stills calls it a columbine simulator, and how he cites the articles of people who havent even played the games themselves.

Brilliant Jack, just brilliant.

He really does make me laugh and help me get through my day at work.

And with that ending about homosexuality, he admits NOT caring for children and in fact promoting bigotry and hate AGAINST children, not through fiction but through taught methods on how individuals should treat one another. I wonder what the foundation of that homophobia is? Hmmm... Once we find out, we can have our own protests to have kids protected from the teachings of bigotry and hate which has, on occassion, led to violent acts against those identified (truthfully or otherwise) as being homosexual. Even abuse, of numerous forms, have been justified by the bigotry and hate teachings of various groups.

So, if John Bruce is saying that violence in a fictional game encourages violence in the real world, then the same must be true of directly teaching individuals to treat groups of real individuals with bigotry and hate MUST lead to violence as well. So, we must protect the kids from the groups that teach bigotry and hate as well as any materials that directly teach bigotry and hate or can be interpretted (modded) to teach bigotry and hate as that leads to violence. Evidence has been show through abuse of students in schools as well as outside of schools based on assumption that the victim must belong to the group that the attack has been trained to hate and commit bigoted acts against.

Now, what type of groups do we protect our children from and what materials do we have linked to pornography for teaching bigotry and hate to kids so that kids can't get their hands on them? Hmmm.... Obviously, it has to be something John Bruce is associated with since he obviously approves teaching bigotry and hate to others and the resulting violence that is caused by that bigotry and hate. Hmmm.... I wonder what it could be.

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

Thompson says, with regard to his contempt hearing, "What this Judge is doing violates 18 USC 241, which prohibits any state official from using his authority to infringe upon the Constitutional rights of a citizen." Given that, as of right now, no ruling has been made by the judge regarding this contempt charge, isn't it a little premature on Thompson's part to attack the judge for it?

If he goes to jail, would someone please get his mugshot, oh please, I'd love to see it posted all over the internet...

He's marshalling all his defenses against this. It'll be a real mark on his record if he's held in contempt and I think it will severely affect his ability to practice law if he is jailed for it as well. I truly think you're seeing the last acts of a desperate man.

I'll be absolutely shocked if he goes to jail. He might be held in contempt, but that's as far as it will go, fine at the most. Of course, that won't stop Jack from actig like a martyr. I think he almost wants to get sent to jail. If he was jailed for this, I garauntee you that he'll mention his selfless act in the face of injustice in every one of his crazy third person press releases.

"I have appeared on 60 minutes, The Today Show, and was wrongfully incarcerated for speaking out against pornographic columbine murder simulation software designed to turn our children into Manchurian Candidate zombie assasins."

Something like that.

Speaking of Jack and this hearing, look at what he fired off to Kotaku's Brian Crecente today.

Standard PR spam, but the best bit from it which comfirms what we suspect:
By the way, Bully contains homosexual activities between Jimmy Hopkins and other male students. Is this a great country or what?

That might have gotten you some milage in the 80s or less, but come on....

I could just qoute the whole thing, what a bunch of woppers....

Once again, Jack proves that he has no clue what the First Amendment actually entails. He continues to try to censor those he disagrees with, and then claims "civil rights" violations and that HIS First Amendment rights are being infringed when they (in this case rightfully) attempt to have him shut down.

A few other comments:

1) A judge has the right to change his mind about his "orders" and "promises" upon seeing that an attorney's claims precipitating those orders are nothing but hogwash.

2) First Amendment rights do not allow you to violate the order of a judge.

3) Jack is still amazingly sticking to his guns about the level of violence in "Bully." I've seen the game now and it's surprisingly tame.

4) Jack's not going to get an injunction to get Bully yanked off the shelves. There actually IS First Amendment rights backing this one up. If the violence is as clearly as insane as Jack claims it is, I'm hoping he has screenshots and video recordings of said violence. (He doesn't because he's relying on hearsay AND is probably only hearing those things he wants to hear while disregarding everything else.)

5) I'm really hoping jail time ensues here. Don't drop the soap, Jack.

From Kotaku:

To summerize, Jack says that the judge wants to hold him in contempt for appealing the case and that it has nothing to do with the rambling, and insulting letter he sent the judge after losing his bid to stop the sale of Bully in Florida.

Riiiiiiiight. Wouldn't that be entrapment then, since Friedman offered JT the chance to appeal? ;)

So does that mean judges aren’t allowed to make people who break laws go to jail anymore?

You see, JT doesn't feel that stuff like gag orders and other legal restrictions on the 1st Amendment apply to him. So if he wants to say nasty things in court, he should be allowed. But remember it only applies to him. No-one else is allowed to make nasty comments about him in return, that's infringing on his rights.

I love how he refers to it as fraud, just because the ESRB doesn't agree with NIMF on what is largely a subjective matter. Which is why the ESRB employs multiple people to rate a game.
The Take-Two lawyers asking for this are the delightful folks at Blank Rome who are a) the registered lobbyists in the US Senate and House for Take-Two, and b) the largest bundlers of campaign cash contributions to President Bush. This is the same President Bush who invited Jack Thompson to his Presidential School Violence Summit two weeks ago because of Thompson’s expertise on the link between violent games like Bully and school massacres.
I'm confused. Is any of this relevent? Does it matter that the Blank Rome lawyers are lobbyists? I haven't heard even the slightest whisper of Bush being coerced by TT, BR, or R*, so how do the campaign contributions matter? And as a final note, if you're having a summit on something, if you don't get people from both sides of the issue, it's less of a summit and more of a farce. Bush's invitation only shows that he doesn't know how full of BS Thompson is.

He's more like a Scientologist in that once you cross him or his wacked out beliefs you become 'fair game' and any means to destroy you is acceptable.

I would like to see a not inconsiderable cash fine, I feel bad for it because his family may suffer but it's only something like that which will make him think twice about further frivolous cases. Jail time will just be more BS for his future press releases and a slap on the wrist will just encorage him to play up more in future.

Can you appeal a contempt of court charge, anyone know?

Sorry, forgot to give credit to Destructoid for the recusal info.

Good work Niero and thanks for keeping us posted.

"citing that because he has filed a complaint to the Florida bar, he feels that “I’ll let Thompson be someone else’s problem.”" -- at least he didn't completely get off... (from destructoid)

@GoodRobotUs

Good eye. Their site is dreadfully slow, but it sounds like Niero videotaped the whole thing. Guess we'll get to see what was on the posterboard later.

Thanks Jabrwock, I think I just got lucky with the refresh.

I'd ask if anyone has room to host those videos when they are up, I have a feeling poor Destructoid is going to be flat on its back not long after those appear.

I find it moderately amusing that a man who claims to be fighting against 'violent people' needed to have 4 policemen called into his Contempt hearing. I don't think Jack ever figured out that 'violence' exists more than a physical form.

@Jabrwock

I can't await to see how slow the server is when the video is up.



Either way, it's not that JT's not going to jail yet, it's that the judge recused himself because he couldn't put up with thompson. I can't wait to see what was on the sign.

The judge probably did the right thing in this case considering the circumstances. I did some searching on Florida's law site and there doesn't seem to be any judicial precedent for these circumstances.

The headline will probably be..."Jack isn't going to jail...yet."

It sounds like Jack's antics today are only increasing the size of the grave he's digging for himself. Any other judge getting wind of these antics will probably not be pleased, and it's not like Jack can run for ALL of the judge offices.

ok, I'm a little backed up on the facts. What happened in court?

This works out for the best. The judge walks away, jack faces another judge, and his antics only dig the hole deeper, plus, new Bar Complaint.

In the end, the judge did the right thing, but now, jack is caught in his own trap, as TT can show he intentionally created a conflict of intrest.

Not exactly the brillant plan JT had thought it was.

Oops... never mind... Answered my own question... Carry on...

>>Good luck in court, Jack “The Twat” Thompson!
>>
>>–remember folks, I penned that nickname first!
>>—Also, seriously, good luck, Jack, you will need it.

Fixed.