Thompson v. The Florida Bar

Filing 92

Plaintiff's MOTION for Leave to File Florida Bar Rules by John B. Thompson. (Attachments: # 1)(Thompson, John)

Thompson v. The Florida Bar

Doc. 92

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JOHN B. THOMPSON, Plaintiff, v. THE FLORIDA BAR and DAVA J. TUNIS, Defendants. PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE DOCUMENT COMES NOW plaintiff, John B. Thompson, hereinafter Thompson, as an attorney on his own behalf, and moves this court for leave to file the attached document, stating: 1. U.S. District Court Judge Arthur J. Tarnow, Eastern District of Michigan, has struck down as unconstitutional the Michigan Bar's and Michigan Supreme Court's "Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct," Rules 3.5(c) and 6.5(a). The below is from the commencement of Judge Tarnow's order. Note that Rule 6.5(a) "relates to attorney conduct toward all persons." Case No. 07-21256 (Judge Adalberto Jordan)

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Dockets.Justia.com

2. Judge Tarnow found these "courtesy provisions" or "speech code provisions," to use this plaintiff's characterization, unconstitutional. This is from the lengthy order's conclusion:

3. The two unconstitutional Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct (delineated and discussed in Judge Turnow's opinion) are similar in wording and purpose to The Florida Bar's unconstitutionally vague and First Amendment-chilling "speech code"

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Rules with which The Bar has been harassing Thompson for more than three years. Take away The Bar's prosecution of Thompson under these speech code Rules, and there is nothing left with which The Bar can bludgeon Thompson. And unlike The Florida Bar, the Michigan Bar did not have the crazed chutzpa to pathologize Feiger's radio rantings. 4. Thus, Thompson seeks permission to file with the court the attached Florida Bar Rules with which The Bar seeks to punish Thompson's First Amendment-protected speech about two judges, about a video game company that has been caught distributing millions of copies of adult-rated video games to children, about the illegal (18 USC 1464) broadcast of pornographic, about Beasley Broadcast Group's criminal transmission of the Howard Stern Show, and about the attorneys who have facilitated these illegal, criminal activities. 5. If Geoffrey Fieger can go on a widely-heard radio program and call sitting Michigan judges "jackasses," "monkeys," "in the pockets of special interest groups," and compare these judges to Hitler, then surely Thompson has a constitutional right, despite the attached Bar speech code, rules to write the President of the United States, the FCC, the Governor of Florida, and a US Attorney about illegal activities, even if such "petition speech" inconveniences "persons involved in the legal process." WHEREFORE, plaintiff moves this court for leave to file the attached speech code rules, for it is these Rules which Thompson seeks to have declared unconstitutional in his declaratory judgment portion of his lawsuit as to vagueness, as to their failure to survive a "strict scrutiny test" for restrictions on speech, and as to their unconstitutionality in their application to Thompson's speech.

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I HEREBY CERTIFY that this has been served upon record counsel this 10th day of September, 2007, electronically.

/s/ JOHN B. THOMPSON, Plaintiff Attorney, Florida Bar #231665 1172 South Dixie Hwy., Suite 111 Coral Gables, Florida 33146 Phone: [phone] [e-mail]

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