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Tuesday, 16 October 2007 09:40
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 Jack Thompson Floored Again
Judge Denies Attempt to Name NGN Publisher Norm Kent as Defendant
By Bill Meyer
-The Coral Gables attorney who sought to link Norm Kent to his suit against the Florida Bar gets rebuked, again.-
Jack Thompson’s lawsuit against the Florida Bar was dealt a series of rebukes late Monday afternoon by the judge assigned to the case, U.S. District Court jurist, the Honorable Adalberto Jordan of Miami.
First, as it relates to the gay press, the Court denied Thompson’s motion to add NGN Publisher Norm Kent to the lawsuit. Thompson had claimed Kent was ‘collaborating’ with the Florida Bar and was ‘disseminating obscenity to children through NGN.’
The court rejected that and a series of other extravagant claims made by Thompson, concluding that: “Mr. Thompson’s attacks on me cannot be used by him to disqualify me. The fact that I have ruled against him on various matters and have not seen things his way does not warrant judicial recusal either.”
Third, the court also denied Thompson’s motion asking that the judge enter an order directing the US Attorney for Southern Florida initiate a federal prosecution of Norman Kent, the NGN Publisher.
Fourth, the court allowed Norm Kent to receive from the court’s clerk the potentially defamatory publication Thompson authored which asked for the publisher’s prosecution, included graphic photos, and led to its original order of show cause against Thompson.
Stated Kent, “As soon as our law office receives the letter, we will initiate a lawsuit against Thompson for libel.”
Fifth, the court then denied Thompson’s further request to file with the court “a document describing in words the graphic images he previously filed in the public record,” those being the pictures of adult men engaging in oral and genital sex.
Sixth, the court also struck a series of duplicative motions Thompson filed for “clarification,” noting that he was repeatedly violating the local rules of the court, asserting that “Mr. Thompson cannot continue to file supplemental notices and memoranda… he can only reply once.” After the court issued its original rule to show cause against Thompson, he had filed fourteen replies and was chastised by the court for doing so.
Seventh, the court rejected a motion by Thompson to hold the Florida Bar in criminal contempt, holding that the pleadings he filed were insufficient and not grounds for the same.
Eighth, Thompson had also requested the Court to take notice of certain judicial rulings which he claimed would prove bad faith by one of the Miami judges who had filed complaints against him. Judge Jordan struck that request as irrelevant and denied it as well.
Ninth, while Thompson asked for mediation, the court denied such a request as “premature,” noting that would come as a matter of course, “if Thompson’s complaints survive the Florida Bar’s motion to dismiss.”
Within minutes of the decision being rendered by Judge Jordan, Thompson proceeded to file yet another motion to disqualify the judge. “He will never learn,” said one judicial observer. Today, after the first text of this article was written, Thompson wrote a letter to three United States Senators asking for Judge Jordan to be impeached because he has committed a “misprision of felonies” by his rulings.
The court’s ultimate ruling on the dispositive issues of the case could come as early as this week. If the Florida Bar prevails in striking Thompson’s claims, it will be free to continue its trial against the Coral Gables attorney, now scheduled for November.
Stated Norm Kent, NGN’s Publisher, who had sought to intervene when Thompson tried to name him as a defendant: “The court has properly ruled. My intervention is now unnecessary. This is a disciplinary proceeding about Jack Thompson’s inexcusable professional misconduct. It is not about me, the gay press, or Mork and Mindy.”
Kent’s column on Thompson’s legal woes also appears in today’s edition of the National Gay News.
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