Legal Ethics
Referee: Anti-Porn Lawyer Should Be Disbarred for Acting ‘With Vengeance’
Posted Jul 10, 2008, 11:02 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Miami judge is recommending that anti-porn lawyer Jack Thompson be permanently disbarred for acting “with vengeance” in an attempt to intimidate, harass or disparage lawyers and judges who opposed him or ruled against him.
Judge Dava Tunis said Thompson attempted to harm his opponents’ reputations “with utter disregard to the administration of justice and complete indifference to the consequences his conduct would have on their lives, law firms, judicial careers, clients, families and reputations.”
Tunis made the conclusions in a 169-page document (PDF posted by the Escapist) that recommends he also be required to pay more than $43,000 in legal costs for the disciplinary case against him, the Escapist reports. Thompson has called the disciplinary hearing a "star chamber" and "kangaroo court."
Tunis described Thompson’s actions in one case involving a civil suit against the makers of violent video games. Alabama Judge James Moore found that Thompson had failed to disclose material facts concerning his disciplinary record in his application to appear pro hac vice and revoked an order letting him appear in the case. The judge testified he did so in part because Thompson was sending documents to his office “three, four, five times a day, easy.” After his decision, Moore testified in the disciplinary hearing, Thompson later sent him letters falsely accusing him of discussing a bribe in the case and sought a criminal investigation. Moore maintained that many of Thompson’s serious accusations were also circulated to the media.
One letter faxed to Moore and also addressed to Alabama State Bar officials read in part, “I am tired of being treated like pig slop by the Alabama State Bar and by an out-of-control tyrant who sits, for now, on the bench in Fayette County.” He attached a photo of the judge in the movie My Cousin Vinny. Later he sent a letter renewing the bribery allegations to the Judicial Inquiry Commission in Alabama and to actor Joe Pesci, who played a lawyer in My Cousin Vinny.
Tunis said Thompson’s over-the-top criticism of his opponents is part of a “pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes.”
A footnote in the report said Thompson had faxed her photos of men portraying full-frontal nudity and oral sex that were “wholly unrelated to any issue germane to the disciplinary proceedings.”
Thompson was threatened with sanctions by another judge when he attached electronic photos of gay sex to a motion filed with the court. Thompson said then that he attached the photos to make the point that the bar has not taken action against a lawyer whose website has links to the gay porn, yet at the same time the bar is targeting him for his crusade against porn and violent video games.
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Comments
Posted by Chirs Wallace - 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 21 hours, 19 minutes ago
I have been following the career of this ‘lawyer’ since 2003. It has amazed me that he was not disbarred LONG before now.
I believe the FLA bar is equally responsible for this unchecked behavior (and the fallout it created). Since at least 2003 there were many complaints filed against this soon to be ex-lawyer.
Posted by kay sieverding - 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 18 hours, 25 minutes ago
I don’t understand why judges’ emails are published at all. In fact, why does a judge even need email at all? With the PDF software these days, a proposed order can be cut and pasted right from ECF. Encouraging litigants to communicate with the court directly invites ex parte and the appearance of ex parte and it is so avoidable.
ECF could be constructed to limit the length of what is filed. It could prompt a judge to rule on a motion and even stop a judgment from being issued until a motion is ruled on. It could limit the number of motions that can be filed until the ones already filed are ruled on.
I was blogging recently and I mentioned Dick Cheney (in the context of gun control). The blog gave me an error and wouldn’t upload saying we don’t use the “D--- word”. If blog software has the capability of excluding the word “Dick”, ECF software can surely be written so that it won’t accept briefs with certain words in it. The order identified the word “propaganda” as being offensive. The bane of pro se litigants is a case involving a pro se who used anti semantic names. ECF software could exclude that too. ECF could suggest alternative words and phrases such as “unsupported generalizations” instead of “propaganda”.
Couldn’t disciplinary hearings be automated thru ECF so that it would be more efficient and fairer at the same time? I complained about use of violent threats and perjury to gain advantage in a civil matter and the Col Attorney Regulation Counsel said that that was OK but the way they wrote it you can’t even tell what I was complaining about.