backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 38 comment(s) - last by PitViper007.. on Apr 24 at 8:29 AM
Anti-video game lawyer and game publisher make up and drop lawsuits

Take Two Interactive, publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series, and Jack Thompson, Florida attorney and anti-video game critic, have reached a settlement on a set of pending legal actions.

Thompson has a storied history against Take Two’s games, including an effort to ban the sales of the Sony PlayStation 2 game Bully in Florida. In October 2006, Take Two returned fire by seeking to have Jack Thompson held in contempt of court. In March, Take Two pre-emptively sued Jack Thompson for his threats to block the release of Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV.

GamePolitics is reporting that Thompson and Take Two have reached a settlement whereby Thompson will not sue or threaten to sue to block sale or distribution of any game published by Take Two, nor will he communicate to the company or its partners any accusation that the company committed any wrongdoing by selling its games. Thompson will not be restricted to publically criticizing Take Two’s products, but must make all future contacts with the publisher through its attorneys.

In return, Take Two has agreed to drop its lawsuit against Thompson, for which the court hearing was originally set just the day after the settlement.

“Take-Two agreed to this settlement as part of our ongoing resolution of outstanding legal issues. We're pleased that Mr. Thompson has agreed neither to threaten nor to bring personally lawsuits against Take-Two or our partners related to the sale or distribution of our products,” Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick told GameSpot. “As part of this settlement, Take-Two and Mr. Thompson resolved all pending litigation in the Florida state and federal courts. We will continue to defend aggressively our legal positions as well as pursue prompt resolution in the interest of our company and shareholders.”

Thompson had comments of his own, calling the settlement “a huge victory,” adding, “They dropped the contempt matter in state court. I got everything I wanted.”

Jack Thompson was most recently in the spotlight for his conclusions linking the Virginia Tech killer to video games. Results from the search warrant conducted by authorities, however, found no video games in the possession of Cho Seung-hui, leaving Thompson’s claims largely baseless.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Blah
By SavagePotato on 4/21/2007 6:06:40 PM , Rating: 3
The only realy sad thing I find about Jack Thompson, is that anyone listens to him at all. What the heck is he doing on TV?

Honestly some of these hardcore crazy Christians scare me more than the Muslim extremists do. I sure hope we never have to live in their version of the world.

The thing that has to be the funniest is that he continually refers to people "training" on super columbine massacre. I wish the heck someone would have told Chris Matthews that game was basicaly made as a personal prod at ol Jack and is one of the biggest jokes in the gaming community.




RE: Blah
By MrHanson on 4/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: Blah
By Topweasel on 4/21/2007 9:10:16 PM , Rating: 5
He is right to a Degree. At least we can legally remove the Muslim extremists. Cristian Evangelists, are working day and night to take away our rights because its something they don't agree with. The problem is if you disagree with them then you're not a good Christian.


RE: Blah
By FITCamaro on 4/22/2007 9:37:08 AM , Rating: 1
How are Christian Evangelists working to take away our rights? What? By say wanting the phrase "In God We Trust" to remain on US currency? I'm not affiliated with any religion at the moment (was raised Catholic though) but this country was founded by people who believed in a God (does it really matter which one?).

By not wanting abortions to happen? It's killing a child that has yet to be born and has done nothing to deserve death so don't hold it responsible for the mother having sex and getting pregnant when she didn't want to (obviously rape victims and instances where the mother will die by giving birth are an exception).

By wanting the Ten Commandments to be displayed outside or inside a courtroom? Why not? Are they not sound legal principles other than the first two? Also no one is saying you have to follow them if they are not already laws of this country(don't steal, don't kill, etc). Once again as well, this goes back to that this country was founded by men who believed in a God. Why should we change our country to suit the will of others who have moved here? No one in the government has said you must believe in a particular God or even a God period. Sure Bush is Catholic but Clinton was Protestant, Bush Sr. was Catholic, etc. The only thing thats changed is that political correctness has gotten so damn out of hand its pathetic.

Yes some religious fanatics in this country are totally out there (like the group that believes soldiers are dying in Iraq because of gay people). Last I checked there are no Christian terrorist groups in this country. Sure a few nuts have done a few crazy things claiming it was for their faith. But there's not hardcore movements that are out there actively trying to change things.


RE: Blah
By PrinceGaz on 4/22/2007 1:19:14 PM , Rating: 3
Isn't there supposed to be some seperation of church and state in the US? You are free to worship whoever or whatever you want (such as the FSM if you wish), but no religion has the power to directly or indirectly influence any political decision. I sometimes suspect GW Bush does get influenced by tight-wing christian religious nuts.


RE: Blah
By GaryJohnson on 4/22/2007 5:08:52 PM , Rating: 5
I was touched by his noodly appendage!

The problem I think is that people confuse their faith with knowledge.

If everyone in the world just woke up every morning and repeated to themselves "Just because I believe I'm right, doesn't mean I am right," the world would be a better place.


RE: Blah
By FITCamaro on 4/22/2007 6:32:42 PM , Rating: 1
The separation of church and state is that the church cannot have any say how our country is governed. Not that our president can't follow what he believes to be moral and ethical. Many Americans feel that abortion is wrong. Including ones without any religious reason (I'm one of them).

As far as the "In God We Trust" quote or the "One nation, under God" part of the pledge, those are things that have been with our country since its founding. They in no way are a violation of church and state. The problem is that people take things too damn personally and act like its an attack on their beliefs.

I don't believe that Jesus was the son of god. But would I care if there was a crucifix inside of a courtroom? No. It's not a statement that I have to believe in him.


RE: Blah
By SteelyKen on 4/22/2007 7:04:32 PM , Rating: 4
"In God We Trust" is a phrase that was added to U.S. coinage during the civil war.

"One Nation, Under God ": the bold "Under God" was added to the Pledge in 1954 as a rebuff to the Supreme Court ruling on prayer in school.


RE: Blah
By nhac on 4/22/2007 8:14:51 PM , Rating: 2
I think you've misunderstood the concept. The separation of Church and State was designed so that the organisation of the Church would not have influence over the government. It has nothing to do with any individual acting on their own beliefs.

If you believe something, how can it not influence your decisions? Everything that you believe about life and the world shapes how you feel about things, what you think, and thus how to act based on them.


RE: Blah
By rsmech on 4/22/2007 8:23:05 PM , Rating: 3
Isn't there supposed to be some seperation of church and state in the US?

but no religion has the power to directly or indirectly influence any political decision.

Yes but you have it wrong. The state cannot influence or sanction any particular religion, but any religion can influence the state (by voting members).

Separation of church & state simply means that the gov't cannot have a state sponsored (or endorsed) church, it doesn't mean the converse is also true. A church can endorse or support a gov't.


RE: Blah
By Grast on 4/23/2007 11:50:27 AM , Rating: 2
Finally someone who was awake in history class!!!!

Everyone if you really want to understand the meaning and reasoning applied to the constitution, you need to read the "Federalist Papers". These papers were writtent to explain the constition and bill of rights to the uneducated during the foundation of the country.

The seperation of Church and State is a direct response because of the State sponsered religion in Britian. The newly formed Americans did not want their new government creating laws which endorced or required a specific religion such as in Britian. It did not mean the founding fathers did not want religion on our government. If the latter was true, then why did the founding fathers start every session of congress, senate, hearings, elections, judicial review, and pretty much every government hearings with a PRAYER.

Simple, that want to ensure everyone had the right to practice theri religion with out interferance from the government.

later...


RE: Blah
By theapparition on 4/22/2007 10:46:33 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
obviously rape victims and instances where the mother will die by giving birth are an exception

If you make one execption, why not others? Who decides? Not quite as simple as that.


RE: Blah
By borismkv on 4/23/2007 12:04:12 PM , Rating: 2
Put simply, if someone chooses to have sex, they are faced with the laws of nature. Every time someone has sex, they should realize, "I know what I'm doing, and I know the consequences." Allowing abortion in cases where both people know exactly what can happen (Which any person who has sex at an age past 13 or 14 should) we shouldn't be attempting to bypass nature just because they made a mistake. They made a bad choice, they should face the consequences of that mistake. There are other alternatives to abortion. Yes, they require 9 months of pregnancy, but they also allow potential life to develop.

In the case of rape, one person does not choose to face those consequences, and in the case of possible harm to the mother, one can only say that the actual life should take precedence over the potential of life if the parents of the child so choose. To say that a woman having abortion is her own choice, I agree. But one choice on the matter was already made before abortion comes into the picture.

The gray area comes when a man convinces a woman who doesn't really want to have sex, but she consents anyway. I still believe adoption is a better option in this case.

Our society is so completely obsessed with sex that we think that we have to make it completely safe to have it whenever, wherever, and with whoever we want. People should be held responsible for their choices, rather than given complete mercy for every mistake they make.

But yeah. Why are we getting into abortion and stuff on a computer hardware site?


RE: Blah
By adhoc on 4/23/2007 3:02:18 PM , Rating: 2
By that logic, we should allow the laws of nature run the course of contracting HIV and dying from AIDS, cancer from second-hand smoke, or letting war veterans who have had their legs blown off fend for themselves... Why save burn victims who started a fire from model rockets? Why spend billions (social security) on caring for the elderly? All of these issues can be argued that the consequences of action were known beforehand. However, lots of money, time, and resources are put into saving lives of HIV victims, lung-cancer patients, and debilitated people. Is that wrong? Because of the choices they made and/or luck of long life, should they be held responsible and left to deal with their problems without the choice of intervention?


RE: Blah
By borismkv on 4/23/2007 9:12:27 PM , Rating: 2
No, that wouldn't be the result, continuing with my logic. Though I appreciate your attempt at clever and underhanded rhetoric to prove your own point, you are completely wrong. And by your examples, do you honestly think that pregnancy is something bad? Is it a great evil among us? I surely hope not. At any rate, once someone contracts HIV, they have it. They cannot go back and remove all of the little bugs that cause it, and AIDs comes as a natural response. There is nothing we can do currently to heal it. Those who have cancer from second hand smoke never chose anything that resulted in their cancer, so I don't know why you included that in your list, but those who get cancer from smoking still have to live with the fact that they have cancer. They have to go through treatment to either cure it or decrease the pain caused by it. A War veteran has his leg blown off. He can't go back and replace his leg like the injury never occurred. The people burned in a fire are forced to live their lives with the scars from their mistakes. None of these people can make things the way they were before by simply removing the consequences of their action. Age is a natural course of life. The way social security is *supposed* to work is people pay into it during their whole lives, then are payed that money back at the end of their lives. If it worked the way it was meant to, all the money I pay would go back to me. That's not how it works. I think we need something different.

At any rate, society helps lift the weight of the burden from those who suffer from mistakes, but cannot ever remove the consequences completely. This is not how things work with abortion. Abortions remove all of the consequences for improper action. In many cases, the women who have pregnancies live with a great deal of guilt for having done so. I refuse to judge any woman who chooses to have an abortion, their reasons are there own. But there are alternatives to abortion in situations where children are not wanted. There are adoption agencies that will remove the burden of parenthood without completely breaking the consequences of a mistake. I believe women should take responsibility for their actions and go through with an unwanted pregnancy and then place their child up for adoption, as there are plenty of people out there who cannot have children that would be glad to raise one, or many. My point is that people need to take responsibility for their actions, rather than working so hard to avoid facing consequences of any type for improper action.


RE: Blah
By adhoc on 4/24/2007 1:02:54 AM , Rating: 2
I appreciate your points, and they are good, but my post was continuing on with your statement on the laws of nature and how people should know and face the consequences. That's like expecting a million quarters thrown in the air to land on "heads". People drive drunk, they know the consequences, but they still do it. Is it a problem of the availability of alcohol (fertility), the ability for a driver to decide when to drive (sex), or perhaps just inexeperience/education (morality)? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is "it depends". I was trying to point out that abortion coined as a bad idea (nature defying) for everything except dissented sex (rape, etc) is an overstatement. Pregnancy and abortions aren't trivial things, and like my previous (extravagant, yes) examples there is the potential for a lot of emotional (from guilt to family rejection) and physical pain, and even permanent irreversable damage to reproductive organs or the self during abortions. Abortions aren't always 100% scathe-free (even the pre-8 week pill abortions).

In my examples, if the human race was content with nature's laws, we wouldn't have people who have had HIV living (mostly-)happily for 20 years, cancer survivors, abortion-battling ideas such as contraception, or even safer forms of abortion. I surely don't feel abortion is the best answer to capable and mature parents, but I'm sure to not question why one would do so in that situation either. Having the option, for whatever reason between mother and doctor, is their own.

Looking at the statistics for the US (http://www.americanpregnancy.org/main/statistics.h... of 6 million pregnancies, 1.2 million are aborted (for many reasons). Assuming (blindly) that 1/8th of that statistic isn't a result of illegitimate means, people who "zip up" with the knowledge that they can no longer get out of nature's law, or people who keep their beautiful children, we'll have ~150,000 new babies without homes every year. I don't know what number of young children are currently added to US adoption centers yearly, but a 150,000 spike is no small dent. Its not so easy to argue that the adoption infastructure is able to hold that amount of influx and have it sustain as a better alternative.


RE: Blah
By nhac on 4/22/2007 8:11:32 PM , Rating: 3
I think you've got things a bit mixed up. A Christian Evangelist spreads the word of God and is trying to convert people to Christianity.

What you've got here is a crazy deluded nutjob who will jump on anyone and anything to push his two-faced political agenda. I mean for the love of Mike, he capitalised on the VT slaughter to boost his career. Anyone who would use something like that for their own personal gain is nothing short of selfish and evil. That's not a display of Christian values. That's disgusting behaviour as a human being.

I would say the problem here is 'extremists'. It doesn't matter what you believe in, if you're a crazy person and start doing crazy stuff you should be opposed and stopped. JT must have been drunk to think that comes off as a win for him. I almost think T2 have done gaming a disservice by dropping the contempt - it was a great chance to nail him, but I guess they have made things pretty safe for themselves now.

Although I'm betting he'll ignore his agreement, since I'm quite sure he doesn't understand what he agreed to.


RE: Blah
By Saist on 4/22/2007 10:22:15 PM , Rating: 3
I saw this comment in the posts on a story about Jack Thompson on Dailytech

He is right to a Degree. At least we can legally remove the Muslim extremists. Cristian Evangelists, are working day and night to take away our rights because its something they don't agree with. The problem is if you disagree with them then you're not a good Christian.

Do people actually believe that? Because I can destroy that theory in less than 5 seconds, and with only 8 letters. RIAA : MPAA

Okay, follow with me on this. Every geek, nerd, whatever you want to call us, technology inclined if you will, agrees that Digital Rights Management is a bad thing. We all agree that we don't like to be locked out of our content, and many of us actively work to break down the locks on things like movies and music.

The RIAA and MPAA, on the other hand, pursue an aggressive strategy to remove control of content from end users. The RIAA and MPAA openly prosecute anybody who dares try to circumvent their technology, and work to put laws into place that make it illegal for content buyers to actually... buy content. The dream world of the RIAA and MPAA is that everybody pays to rent content, nobody actually owns it. Even if somebody creates content, they don't actually own the content, the content is owned by the RIAA and the MPAA.

So, how does this fit in with Evangelical Christians?

Let me pose a question : How many movies are made each year that openly mock the Christian Faith and the Jewish Faith? I can think of a couple right off hand, including one coming up later this year that mocks the plagues brought forth against Egypt during the time of Moses. Consider Mel Gibson for a minute who withered a fire storm of criticism for his movie, Passion of the Christ. Mr. Gibson went out of his way to create a movie that looked at the Death of Jesus Christ in a respectful manner, and the members of the RIAA and MPAA collectively attempted to Rip him a new one.

How many music tracks are released each year that blaspheme the Christian Faith and Jewish Faith? Listen to a modern rock station for 10 minutes, and you'll probably hear some song come on that will attack either faith. Obscenities flow forth like water over a waterfall from the mouths of many a "popular" R&B star, or from people like Kid Rock. These are the people being held up as "models" for children to emulate?

Okay, I'll grant you that for every Korn, there was an Impelliteri, and for every Metallica, there was a Petra. For every Limp Biscuit (sorry, I don't know how to spell their name), you had a Stryper. Even when you had chart toppers like Jars Of Clay, DC Talk, Newsboys, and SuperChick, actually trying to get them on a modern Radio station is/was next to impossible. Sometimes the artist is asked to change the words of a song (DC Talk), or to change the video (Michael Sweet) before it will be given air time.

In most cases, retail stores are ordered to go out of their way to separate "Christian" music from "genre" music. Often times, at the order of the RIAA and it's members. For a period of time, retailers were required to mark tape cassettes with "Warning: Contains Explicit Christian Lyrics" (DC Talk, Liaison, Idle Cure, Shout, Alter Boys, Michael Sweet, Stryper).

So... can you see where I'm going with this? The same guys who openly mock the Christian and Jewish faiths are the same guys that geeks agree are bad, and are trying to remove our freedoms.

Has anybody also paid attention to the political party that the RIAA and MPAA are most closely aligned with either? Has anyone ever actually paid attention to the political alignments of the news media including Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN? I'll give you a hint, they are NOT aligned with Republicans.

So, where do people like Jack Thompson fit into this? Well, if I had my guess, I'd say he was a liberal socialist out to cause trouble. The problem is, that isn't how Jack Thompson sells himself. He sells himself a Republican (or at least that is what the reports I have read indicate). However, his rhetoric isn't in line with what most Republicans believe, full stop, end of story.

Now, if you want my opinion, it is the desire of the RIAA and MPAA, and their partners within the mass media to sell Jack Thompson as a Republican, and promote him as such. The result is.. well... destructive. One on hand, Republicans are put on the spot that they don't want to outright reject the concerns over video games, since the concerns mimic the concerns they have about Movies and Music. So there are feelings that something does need to be said. On the other hand, if Republicans don't quickly reject the arguments of Jack Thompson and call foul, you get the impression that the Republican parties are fully behind Jack Thompson... which isn't true.

I'd suggest people who don't understand what's happening there to pick up a little book by Joseph Heller called... Catch-22. It's almost a perfect setup in which there is no simple way out.

Getting back to the point, Christian Evangelists have done more than anybody else to PROTECT the freedoms we enjoy today. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were all Christians, and they were out of their way to establish a legal foundation that protected EVERYBODY, not just themselves. Ever hear of a guy by the name Voltaire? You know, he said this:

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Welcome to the opinion held by most Christians and Jews today. The US, a Christian nation, went after Saddam Hussein not once, but twice, at the request of other Arab nations to protect their freedoms. Our forces went overseas to defend somebody else's right to vote, and control their own household, and to say what they want to say. People we didn't even know or had any emotional attachment to, we went and bailed out.

Back in 2005, Jason Siebels published a comic covering the typical behavior of Americans when somebody else is hurt, be it a country or person : http://anywherebuthere.comicgenesis.com/d/20050102...

The guys behind RightMarch.com ( http://rightmarch.com/ ) have gone out of their way to stop restrictions on Grass-Roots activism, as well as prevent Illegal Aliens from being given the same rights as people who were born or naturalized in the US. Care to guess exactly who is behind RightMarch? You would be right, Evangelical Christians.

Who has fought back against regulation of the Internet? Yep. Republicans and Conservatives... many of whom where... yes. Evangelical Christians.

Who is fighting for regulation of the Internet... oh yes. Our dear leftist Democrat friends, the RIAA, MPAA, and their associates in quoted "Big Media."

Now, I could go on, and I'm highly tempted to, but there really is not a point at this time.

If you really do think that Liberals and Democrats have your personal freedoms in mind, and if you really do believe that a Liberal or Democratic Congress or President is going to enforce those freedoms, then I can't help you. I can't say anything to change your mind, because, take this the wrong way if you will, you are not living in reality. I simply do not have the power to pull you out of your fantasy world.

All we can do at this point is hammer on the Conservatives and Republicans in Congress, and make sure they have the backbone to stand up against those who ARE actively trying to remove your personal freedoms.

If you don't agree with that, or if you don't agree with what I'm saying... I'm going to leave one final suggestion.

Research the history of Russia under Joseph Stalin. Research the History of Red China. And read the works of Karl Marx.

Keep in mind that their economic and personal opinions are considered to be dead wrong in this day and time. Keep in mind that there is empirical proof, both in an economic and social sense, that their ideas failed.

Then compare their policies with those spouted by those controlling the RIAA, MPAA, and Democrat Parties. Compare the platforms written by the Democrat parties with documents available from the Kremlin.

If you can't see the connection, then again, I can't help you.


RE: Blah
By knowyourenemy on 4/22/2007 10:39:18 PM , Rating: 2
Eh. Valid, holds water, but frankly I just don't like how shit is being run in this country.

My two-cents.


RE: Blah
By tacorly on 4/23/2007 12:22:16 AM , Rating: 2
sir im afraid you wrote way too much


RE: Blah
By borismkv on 4/23/2007 12:29:54 PM , Rating: 2
I made it to "I saw" and gave up. Does that make me a bad person?


RE: Blah
By ScythedBlade on 4/21/2007 10:44:06 PM , Rating: 2
Well, people sorta voted down his post, but it shouldn't be. It was a satire, and you have to be somewhat intelligent to understand it.

Here's the way I view it:

We should be concentrated on removing these Christian lawyers who illogically bring up lawsuits that don't work.
[Jack Thompson is one for so called violent video games. Also, the lawyer who screwed up Duke's lacrosse's team.] Heck, they get so much unneeded media press in the wrong way. Instead of centering on the "muslims" as the bad guys, who most Americans are racist against, just because a few of them went whack and screwed us a bit, the media should be portraying all these lawyers as the REAL bad guys.


RE: Blah
By Christopher1 on 4/21/2007 11:20:53 PM , Rating: 4
Well, I take that as an offense. I am a paralegal who works for a lawyer, and my boss was shaking his head and finger at these people like Jack Thompson and the Duke prosecutor saying "What in the WORLD are these people talking about? Stuff like the Columbine shooting does NOT happen because of easy access to guns, because these people are 'damaged' from birth, etc. It happens because people make the lives of these boys a living hell, sometimes without even REALIZING that they are doing that, because they put their high standards on these boys that they are NEVER going to be able to meet!"

Most lawyers are good guys, like the people who are clearing people of rapes and other things with DNA evidence. It's only the VERY few bad ones that give the rest of them a undeserved bad name.


RE: Blah
By ScythedBlade on 4/22/2007 8:58:45 AM , Rating: 3
Oh, I know there are many good lawyers. I'm just referring to the poster's vocabulary use without quotation marks.

It's just that the media potrays these bad lawyers at first ... which they shouldn't be. It's so biased. But hey ... look at Fox News ... there's major bias there.


RE: Blah
By rsmech on 4/22/2007 8:33:18 PM , Rating: 2
I hope your not saying all other news types TV, paper, radio are not bias.

As for the post about Christian Lawyers screwing things up with the example of the Duke La Cross case. Where was religion his motivation, it was about reelection and some of the only people defending these players was what you call "major bias" it wasn't CNN, CBS, NBC, ect.


What a crock
By captchaos2 on 4/21/2007 2:09:35 PM , Rating: 2
How sick and insensitive can you be to use other people's tradgedy for your own gain? Oh wait, that's right, he's a lawyer! If Thompson makes people angry enough that they go out and start shooting lawyers, would HE be banned?




RE: What a crock
By Aquila76 on 4/21/2007 2:38:26 PM , Rating: 3
It's too bad that lawyers like this assnugget get all the press. There are several attorneys that actually try to help the public (I work with several of them). Similar to how police are hated because only the corrupt or out of control ones get the airtime.

I wish nothing but horror for this fart dribble of a human. Like he falls into a leech tank and gets his blood sucked out to the point that he dies. Or he gets a pistol crammed up his ass and is used a silencer to assassinate Jesse Jackson.


RE: What a crock
By Christopher1 on 4/21/2007 11:23:33 PM , Rating: 1
Actually, police are not hated because of the corrupt or out of control ones. They are hated because they are ALWAYS meddling in people's personal decisions and personal problems, such as with the drug laws and the 'arrest anyone who is arguing with his wife' laws.

The police need to start butting out of most of the things that they get involved in, we need to repeal and forbid from ever being put into place again bunches of laws from statutory rape, to drug laws, to loitering laws, etc.

Once we do that and the police only go after the REAL bad guys..... they might not be hated so much.


RE: What a crock
By Aquila76 on 4/22/2007 1:26:12 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with you on the uselessness of many so called 'blue laws' and how the police meddle with personal choices; but, it's not the police force's fault that they have to enforce those laws. Their whole point of existence is to punish violations of law whether they agree with it or not. Under the system, police are not judges (or attorneys) who can interpret the laws. They have to live in a very black and white role where the law is either violated or complied.

I'd like to have police with legal training as an enforcement unit. They could determine based on immediate facts & witnesses at the scene what happened, how, and why and hand out fines / imprisonment or drop the charges accordingly. This should allow for the backlog of important criminal and civil cases to get on with it.


RE: What a crock
By PitViper007 on 4/24/2007 8:29:31 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I'd like to have police with legal training as an enforcement unit. They could determine based on immediate facts & witnesses at the scene what happened, how, and why and hand out fines / imprisonment or drop the charges accordingly. This should allow for the backlog of important criminal and civil cases to get on with it.


What you are talking about is a true police state. There was a movie that was put out a while back called "Judge Dredd" which had EXACTLY what you are talking about, where the police were the judge and exocutioner as well as the law enforcement. Not a state I would want to live in thank you. For all the faults in our legal system, what we have is the best there is. There's a little something called "Due Process" that under the system you envision, people would no longer have a right to. Again, no thank you.

PitViper


everything he wanted?
By lwright84 on 4/21/2007 2:36:29 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Thompson had comments of his own, calling the settlement “a huge victory,” adding, “They dropped the contempt matter in state court. I got everything I wanted.”


sounds like TakeTwo not only got rid of him in the present but blocked any involvement by him in their future. somehow i doubt that is what he wanted. did he even read the settlement?




RE: everything he wanted?
By Aquila76 on 4/21/2007 2:39:53 PM , Rating: 5
Probably not. I think he owns a personalized 'Jump to Conclusions' mat from Office Space and uses that to decide what dockets and news articles are talking about.


manhunt 2
By LiquidIce1337 on 4/21/2007 2:15:59 PM , Rating: 2
Im just pumped they are making a Manhunt 2.. Manhunt was a ridiculous game, some seriously deranged concepts but addictive game play. I can only imagine with newer graphics engines and techniques what the second installment will appear like.

p.s. Jack Thompson is worthless




RE: manhunt 2
By kristof007 on 4/21/2007 3:36:58 PM , Rating: 1
You guys can rate this down for it's very little substance as a comment but two things:

1. GTA IV is going to be amazing and I can't wait.
2. **** Jack Thompson! Can't he find anything else to do?


RE: manhunt 2
By borismkv on 4/23/2007 12:30:58 PM , Rating: 2
No he can't find anything else to do. Would you hire him?


Fire Jack Thompson!
By Milliamp on 4/22/2007 2:46:06 AM , Rating: 2
An asian guy shoots up a school and he assumes that it must becasue he played to many video games???

If he was black and Thompson opened his mouth and made a puclic statement like "I told you crack was a problem" Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have his head on a platter.

So why are these people not attacking Thompson over this racist statement??

Racism is OK, as long as it is against asians?? Maybe I can see why Cho Seung-Hu was angry.




RE: Fire Jack Thompson!
By 91TTZ on 4/22/2007 11:05:46 AM , Rating: 2
Either you're joking, or you have no idea who Jack Thompson is.


that graphic...
By kattanna on 4/23/2007 10:32:09 AM , Rating: 2
is friggin hilarious

best part of this whole news item




"If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." -- Scientology founder L. Ron. Hubbard

DailyTech Poll
Which web browser do you use on your primary personal machine? 






44 Comments









botimage
Copyright 2009 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki