Pete_LeGrant August 28, 2008 Industry 1 views Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Here’s a bit of a rant: I am utterly appalled at what I read in this article from the Palm Beach Post Blog (thanks to Shacknews for the pointer). Lawsuits that blame McDonald’s for obesity to defense lawyers blaming video games for teen violence are unfortunately not new. The GTA games, in particular, have been susceptible to the latter “video game defense.” According to the Palm Beach Post Blog:

“The goal of the ‘video games’ defense is to both shift blame and to explain to a judge and jury why this good kid is suddenly acting like a terrorist,” says Illinois attorney James H. Waller. “Portraying your client as the victim of outside forces (be they child abuse, coercion by peers, or an ultra-violent video game industry) humanizes the client and shifts the culpability.”

What Waller says is likely true, so fine. But the article goes on:

Waller, a defense lawyer and gamer himself (Half-Life not Phoenix Wright), recognizes a dilemma in the video game defense. “While I don’t believe that violent video games tend to have any negative effects on otherwise healthy people, my job is to present ANY theory to a jury that would explain why my client did the things he did.”

Lawyers having a bad reputation is nothing new; and I am not so naive as to think that what Waller is saying is peculiar to him. Nevertheless, I find his admission, which seems almost flippant, extremely disgusting. While the innocent and guilty alike need to be fairly defended in court, I just do not understand how someone can pull the kind of shit that Waller pulls. Making it worse, the article continues:

So does the video game defense work? Yes, says Waller, “[On] an unsophisticated, typically older, somewhat more rural jury pool or judge. To an extent, the defendant is playing on the prejudices that these members of society already have towards video games.”

Waller: a truly disgusting human being. Or am I overreacting?

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