Legal Ethics
Lawyer Could Face Sanctions After Adding Images of Kangaroos, Swastikas to Filing
Posted Feb 22, 2008, 09:10 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Anti-pornography lawyer Jack Thompson is once again citing the First Amendment in response to the latest action by a Florida court taking issue with his online filings.
The Florida Supreme Court issued a show-cause order on Tuesday threatening Thompson with sanctions for his “constant abusive" and "numerous meritless filings," the Daily Business Review reports.
The order described one recent filing in which Thompson interspersed his legal arguments with pictures, including images of swastikas, kangaroos in a court, monkeys and photos of celebrities.
By Thursday afternoon, Thompson had responded with three court filings in which he said the order to show cause “wildly infringes” on his constitutional rights, including his First Amendment right to petition the government for grievances, the Daily Business Review says.
"It is beyond bizarre that they think they can tell me I can't seek relief,” he told the publication.
The court has twice warned Thompson to quit filing motions associated with a disciplinary case against him being heard by Judge Dava Tunis, the story says. Thompson had filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit seeking to stop the proceedings, which are based on his comments and press releases about judges. The federal suit was dismissed.
The state supreme court said Thompson had filed more than 46 documents that were forwarded to Tunis, dismissed or denied. It also referred to an unusual filing of Thompson’s in his federal lawsuit: pictures of gay porn attached to an electronic court filing.
Thompson said at the time that he filed the photos to make a point about a double standard by the bar, which had taken no action against a lawyer who linked to the photos on his website.
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Posted by Ace of Sevens - 7 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 3 hours, 5 minutes ago
Jack did manage to get a law degree and pass the bar, so he must understand the difference between linking to somethign on a private website and including it in a court filing for a case to which it is not even slightly relevant except to make his double-standards point and yet, he does it anyway. One must conclude he wants to be sanctioned.
Posted by Steven F. - 7 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 44 minutes ago
What really bothers me about Jack is that his cause of protecting children from inappropriate subject matter isn’t necessarily a bad thing to pursue. I agree that children are exposed to way too much sexual and violent content these days, whether though movie, television and video games. However, his actions are so unprofessional and just down right malicious at times that he only ends up alienating and insulting anyone that would have otherwise listened to him. I hope that someone more respectable continues his cause in future. Someone thats willing to work with various media sources instead of just trying to shortsightedly demonize them. But I’m afraid Jack’s disregarded for professionalism has left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.