Buy:wildcatlh
11-15-08, 06:14 PM
...since I'm an attorney in Florida registered with the Bar, he just sent me this. He's inviting replies. I'm considering what to reply with... (and it can't be anything vulgar or non-respectful, since I'd otherwise then be inviting bar discipline myself....)
I have just been permanently disbarred by The Florida Bar after being a lawyer in continuous good standing for 31 years. No client complained. My sin was accepting Ed Bradley's personal request to go on CBS' 60 Minutes to expose the reckless and harmful marketing of adult-rated, violent, and pornographic Grand Theft Auto video games to kids. One of these teens killed three Alabama cops after training to kill them on this "cop-killing" murder simulation game.
If you want to know more about how broken our Bar is and what can be done to fix it, please hit the Reply button, and I will e-mail you with more information that will curl your toes. If you don't want to hear any more about any of this, then don't do anything. I shan't bother you further.
After I appeared on 60 Minutes, opposing lawyers for the video game company filed Florida Bar complaints to "shoot the messenger." The Preamble to The Florida Bar Rules prohibits complaints filed by opposing counsel, but The Bar blew right through that stop sign. The Bar may run you over next. I was disbarred after a Bar "trial" at which I was allowed to introduce no evidence and no witnesses. I was sentenced after not being allowed to speak at my sanctions "hearing." My two designated reviewers and my Bar prosecutor gave campaign money to my Referee after she was assigned the case. One of them has been indicted by the federal government for money laundering.
Mother Teresa could have been convicted of prostitution in this kangaroo court. To top it off, the Florida Supreme Court denied me my right even to my Petition for Review of the Referee's Report. The right of self representation has been denied by only one other Anglo-American tribunal-England's notorious Star Chamber. This shredding of your and my due process rights is with the permission of a Supreme Court that is one of the most politicized high courts in the country.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas opined in Lathrop v. Donohue that integrated state bars, like ours, would eventually become "goose-stepping brigades" seeking to force ideological conformity upon its members. Bar President Miles McGrane polled Florida Bar members awhile back and found that many of them believe and in fact know that "discipline" is meted out unequally, dependent whom you know or don't know in The Bar hierarchy. Bar President Hank Coxe and his Special Commission on Lawyer Regulation were told to fix the unequal treatment of Florida lawyers. Coxe refused.
In 1992, the American Bar Association issued its McKay Commission Report which condemned as fatally flawed the very disciplinary system we have in The Florida Bar. The ABA McKay Report warned that bar governors must have nothing to do with lawyer regulation because of the likelihood that discipline would become politicized. One of the seven members of the McKay Commission was The Florida Bar's own John T. Berry.
There's a young man in a Florida prison by the name of Richard Gorman. He's innocent and was put there because an unscrupulous Leon County prosecutor hid exculpatory evidence. who makes the Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong look like Clarence Darrow. Gorman's mother brought a Bar complaint against this prosecutor for his prosecutorial misconduct. Grievance Committee 13-C found probable cause against him. Our Board of Governors on July 29, 2008, issued the most bizarre legal document I have ever seen. It acknowledges the correctness of the Grievance Committee's probable cause finding, notes the unethical "win at all costs philosophy" of this prosecutor, and then it wipes out the probable cause finding in order to protect the prosecutor. This Gorman cover-up reveals a Florida Bar disciplinary system that has lost its way. A Bar that would pervert its disciplinary system to keep an innocent man in jail to protect its good ole boy network would have no qualms about ending your law career if powerful opposing lawyers wanted it ended.
The Bar did just that to me without a shred of evidence, at the request of the porn industry and its lawyers.
If you have your own Bar discipline horror story, I want to hear it. You can e-mail me at (removed) . I have filed a federal civil rights action against The Bar.
Three years ago your Board of Governors put their faces on our Annual Bar Meeting and called themselves "The Guardians of Democracy." Justice Douglas would disagree.
Sincerely, Jack Thompson, Formerly Florida Bar #231665
I have just been permanently disbarred by The Florida Bar after being a lawyer in continuous good standing for 31 years. No client complained. My sin was accepting Ed Bradley's personal request to go on CBS' 60 Minutes to expose the reckless and harmful marketing of adult-rated, violent, and pornographic Grand Theft Auto video games to kids. One of these teens killed three Alabama cops after training to kill them on this "cop-killing" murder simulation game.
If you want to know more about how broken our Bar is and what can be done to fix it, please hit the Reply button, and I will e-mail you with more information that will curl your toes. If you don't want to hear any more about any of this, then don't do anything. I shan't bother you further.
After I appeared on 60 Minutes, opposing lawyers for the video game company filed Florida Bar complaints to "shoot the messenger." The Preamble to The Florida Bar Rules prohibits complaints filed by opposing counsel, but The Bar blew right through that stop sign. The Bar may run you over next. I was disbarred after a Bar "trial" at which I was allowed to introduce no evidence and no witnesses. I was sentenced after not being allowed to speak at my sanctions "hearing." My two designated reviewers and my Bar prosecutor gave campaign money to my Referee after she was assigned the case. One of them has been indicted by the federal government for money laundering.
Mother Teresa could have been convicted of prostitution in this kangaroo court. To top it off, the Florida Supreme Court denied me my right even to my Petition for Review of the Referee's Report. The right of self representation has been denied by only one other Anglo-American tribunal-England's notorious Star Chamber. This shredding of your and my due process rights is with the permission of a Supreme Court that is one of the most politicized high courts in the country.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas opined in Lathrop v. Donohue that integrated state bars, like ours, would eventually become "goose-stepping brigades" seeking to force ideological conformity upon its members. Bar President Miles McGrane polled Florida Bar members awhile back and found that many of them believe and in fact know that "discipline" is meted out unequally, dependent whom you know or don't know in The Bar hierarchy. Bar President Hank Coxe and his Special Commission on Lawyer Regulation were told to fix the unequal treatment of Florida lawyers. Coxe refused.
In 1992, the American Bar Association issued its McKay Commission Report which condemned as fatally flawed the very disciplinary system we have in The Florida Bar. The ABA McKay Report warned that bar governors must have nothing to do with lawyer regulation because of the likelihood that discipline would become politicized. One of the seven members of the McKay Commission was The Florida Bar's own John T. Berry.
There's a young man in a Florida prison by the name of Richard Gorman. He's innocent and was put there because an unscrupulous Leon County prosecutor hid exculpatory evidence. who makes the Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong look like Clarence Darrow. Gorman's mother brought a Bar complaint against this prosecutor for his prosecutorial misconduct. Grievance Committee 13-C found probable cause against him. Our Board of Governors on July 29, 2008, issued the most bizarre legal document I have ever seen. It acknowledges the correctness of the Grievance Committee's probable cause finding, notes the unethical "win at all costs philosophy" of this prosecutor, and then it wipes out the probable cause finding in order to protect the prosecutor. This Gorman cover-up reveals a Florida Bar disciplinary system that has lost its way. A Bar that would pervert its disciplinary system to keep an innocent man in jail to protect its good ole boy network would have no qualms about ending your law career if powerful opposing lawyers wanted it ended.
The Bar did just that to me without a shred of evidence, at the request of the porn industry and its lawyers.
If you have your own Bar discipline horror story, I want to hear it. You can e-mail me at (removed) . I have filed a federal civil rights action against The Bar.
Three years ago your Board of Governors put their faces on our Annual Bar Meeting and called themselves "The Guardians of Democracy." Justice Douglas would disagree.
Sincerely, Jack Thompson, Formerly Florida Bar #231665