Jack Thompson Twists SPOnG Story in Murder Misquote

By Tim Smith

On Wednesday we ran a story about convicted double-murderer, James Christopher Stitt and how, in a bid to avoid execution, he opted to assert that he had been playing Grand Theft Auto on the night of the slaying in February 2005.

He had previously not mentioned this in testimony - in fact his then girlfriend has testified that he had been watching television.

We also pointed out that his defence team and expert defence witness, psychologist Dr Moira Artigues, "did not suggest that there was a connection between the video game and the murders".

The jury has now decided that Stitt will receive a life as opposed to death sentence.

Since naming SPOnG in a court filing last April (and then backing down) Florida lawyer Jack Thompson has, for the most part, left our inbox alone. So, it was with some surprise that we found an email entitled 'Hey, it never gets old being right all the time. What's it like to be wrong most of the time, my spongies?' sat there this morning.

Mr Thompson - who is currently under sanction by the Florida Supreme Court following filings in a case versus the Florida Bar - had enclosed a press release entitled, 'VIDEO GAME DEFENSE HELPS SAVE NORTH CAROLINA KILLER FROM DEATH PENALTY'.

In the release he states, "Part of Stitt's defense was his obsessive play of the Grand Theft Auto video games, and it was obviously persuasive. It was put before the jury in a very clever fashion, and it worked". He then prints a link to our story indicating that somehow we support his assertions.

Just for the record, we said "Stitt said he was 'playing Grand Theft Auto until 4am on the day of the murder" - absolutely nowhere did we assert 'obsession'. In fact, we even pointed out his earlier testimony in which, "Grand Theft Auto wasn’t mentioned".

What we did report was the headline run by local Fay Oberserver newspaper for the original story: 'Killer Stitt was immersed in video game '.

The most recent headline from that paper is, 'Stitt lawyers shoot down video game warning'. The story quotes Jim Parish, a lawyer for the defence, stating "There was no ‘video game defense", in response to Thompson's assertions to the contrary.

Once again, our original story stated that it was the 'murderer' who used GTA in mitigation not his defence team. Stitt could in fact have pressured his team into entering the video-game (or "It wasn't me, it was pixels that made me do it") into testimony.

We also pointed out that his defence produced much more evidence that indicated much, much more deep-seated issues than apparently playing a video game.

We stated that Dr Artigues "did not suggest that there was a connection between the video game and the murders". We also stated that Stitt had only claimed to play 'Grand Theft Auto' and not several different Grand Theft Auto games.

At no point did we say 'it was put before the jury in a clever manner' nor did we use the word 'obsessive' - nor in fact did the defence team or psychologist.

None of that, of course, stops Mr Thompson from being able to insert the phrase 'obsessive play of the Grand Theft Auto video games' into a press release.

Claiming to play one game for a number of hours in a day does not make for an obsession with an entire series. Making sure that claim relates to one of the biggest entertainment releases in memory - and one that comes soaked in controversy - does make for a desperate attempt not to be given the death sentence.

Of course, Thompson could simply have stopped twisting information there. However, his press release continues (but this time as if written by Nostradamus), "Increasingly, the criminal defense bar will be using the 'video game defense' because of the video game industry's aggressive and illicit marketing of adult games to minors".

Effectively Thompson is telling the future based on the illogical - and defamatory - conclusion that one profession will use a defence based on the sales techniques of another.

He then caps the lot off with some more twisted facts.

"Recent US Supreme Court case striking down the juvenile death penalty, Roper v. Simmons, acknowledged the reliability of brain scan studies that show violent material is processed in a different part of the brain in a younger person, making copycatting of violence more likely", the release tells us.

The case he is referring to is a murder by 17 year-old Simmons of a 46-year-old, Shirley Crook, in September 1993. Thompson links Stitt with Simmons due to the fact that Simmons' execution was overturned by the US Supreme Court on March 1st March 2005.

'Recent' in Thompson's words appears to be in relation to the actual length of time that human beings have lived on earth.

According to the Supreme Court's own opinion in the case, "In chilling, callous terms he (Simmons) talked about his plan, discussing it for the most part with two friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, then aged 15 and 16 respectively. Simmons proposed to commit burglary and murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim, and throwing the victim off a bridge. Simmons assured his friends they could 'get away with it' because they were minors."

It continues, "The experts testified about Simmons’ background including a difficult home environment and dramatic changes in behavior, accompanied by poor school performance in adolescence. Simmons was absent from home for long periods, spending time using alcohol and drugs with other teenagers or young adults."

Is it us or do 'drugs', 'alcohol' and 'difficult home environment' leap out here?

Also interestingly, the only one of the Supreme Court Justices to mention 'studies' (and even then not specifically 'brain scans') was Justice Scalia who dissented in the 5-4 ruling. He states, "...the Court looks to scientific and sociological studies, picking and choosing those that support its position.

"It never explains why those particular studies are methodologically sound; none was ever entered into evidence or tested in an adversarial proceeding."

It's my highlighting in that paragraph. Compare it to Mr Thompson's assertion that (a) 'recent' Supreme Court case 'acknowledged the reliability of brain scan studies' - no it did not.

Studies such as Deborah Yurgelun-Todd's (director of cognitive neuroimaging at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts) regarding black and white images of frightened faces shown to adults and teens, were mentioned in the hearings.

Yurgelun-Todd observed the amygdala region (very loosely, the 'action' part) of the teens' brains reacted more strongly, while the pre-frontal region (again, loosely 'considered thinking') part of the adults' brains showed activity during MRI scans.

She concluded, "[W]ith emotional information, the teenager's brain may be responding with more of a gut reaction than an executive or thinking kind of response. And if that's the case ... you'll have more of an impulsive behavioral response."

So, 'teens act while adults consider when confronted with emotional images' could be a way to interpret this data.

But that study has been queried by Dartmouth professor Abigail Baird who carried out a similar experiment "using contemporary colour photographs (not black and white ones of older people) of younger people (in which) the adolescents' 'frontal lobes' [went] bananas." In other words, she said, they were "able to be more analytical when they [cared]."

So, the case isn't recent. The studies, according to Justice Scalia, were not even entered into evidence. If you want to read the entire opinion of the court, you will also find no mention of 'copycatting' or that showing violent material to adolescents makes them more or less likely to act violently.

Once again, no matter how you try to make it add up, Mr Thompson, 2+2 does not equal 22. There are more reasons to kill than a single video game. There are also more reasons to want to find out why murders occur than trying to score cheap points: the victims; their families and friends; the murderer and their family and all the other people unnecessarily frightened.