It’s the one-year anniversary of Jack Thompson’s permanent disbarment and to celebrate the occasion, the disgraced former attorney has announced his imminent return to the practice of law.
It’s been awhile since we’ve had any news from Thompson, the game-hating ex-lawyer who was permanently disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court for his crazy antics and gross misconduct both in and out of the courtroom. While he fought loud and long against the decision, he was ultimately forced to throw in the towel. Or so we thought.
But now, after several months of relative silence, he’s back! Thompson sent an email to GamePolitics last week in which he claimed that, thanks to a technical error, he was never actually disbarred at all. “The Florida Supreme Court, in violation of the laws of Florida assigned to Thompson’s case a referee from Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit, rather than from the state’s Second Judicial Circuit, where he would have received a fair trial. Bar counsel hid this fatal defect not only from Thompson but from the Florida Supreme Court as well,” he wrote. “What this means is that Thompson literally was never disbarred.”
As a result, Thompson said he’s going to re-hang his shingle on October 1 and has actually dared Mary Ellen Bateman, who’s responsible for prosecuting the “unlicensed practice of law” on behalf of the Florida Supreme Court, to try to stop him. “Unless she acts, he’s back in business,” he continued, “and the children of this country will have returned to them the lawyerly labors of a man who… forced Take-Two, along with Senator Hillary Clinton to recall all copies worldwide of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which cost Take-Two tens of millions of dollars.”
I have absolutely no idea if Thompson’s argument has any merit to it, but given his near-delusional behavior as his law career went up in smoke, I rather doubt it. Furthermore, GamePolitics said it asked “a few members of the legal community” to have a look at his argument and the general consensus is that Thompson “doesn’t really have a leg to stand on.”
It’s less a question of the merits of his argument, then, and more a bet on whether Thompson just goes ahead and starts playing lawyer again anyway – and what will happen if he does. My inclination, based on his many past promises to rain down fire and destruction which ultimately came to naught, is that October 1 will pass quietly; but you better believe I’ll be watching, just in case.
