In Pro Se News: Comedy and Tragedy
We’ll start with the funny stuff. It’s been a few months since federal prisoner Jonathan Lee Riches has graced these pages. We welcome the wacky pro se litigant back as he joins the war against World of Warcraft. He’s filed a motion to intervene in video game lawsuit MDY v. Blizzard (WoW’s creator). Virtually Blind has Riches’ motion to intervene, where Riches claims:
World of Warcraft caused Riches [sic] mind to live in a virtual universe, where Riches explored the landscape committing identity theft and fighting cybermonster rival hacker gangs. Riches was addicted to video games and lost touch with reality because of defendants. This caused Riches to commit fraud to buy defendants video games. Riches chose World of Warcraft over working a legit job. Riches mind became a living video game.
Riches has definitely lost touch with reality. He’s filed countless lawsuits, against everyone from Catherine Zeta-Jones to Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Judges are understandably fed up with frivolous and crazy pro se suits like those filed by Riches. Louisiana judge Edward Dufresne grew so sick of them that he stopped reading pro se appeals from convicts. According to the Times-Picayune, he directed court staffer Jerrold Peterson to automatically deny any appeal not filed by an attorney. Dude, due process much?
The sad news: After 13 years of this, Peterson committed suicide, blaming guilt over the 2,500 appeals he denied. In response to Peterson’s suicide note, the Louisiana Supreme Court has asked the Fifth Circuit to step up and review the many appeals.
Third-Party Motion in World of Warcraft Bot Case Accuses Blizzard of… Well… Beats Me [Virtually Blind]
In a suicide note, reflections on guilt [Times-Picayune]
(25) 
Comments
firsty firsty
He could have just quit his job. I'm not opposed to suicide, but there was an easy way out of the guilt here. STOP doing that which makes you feel guilty!
This guy was just depressed, with some guilt on top of it.
THIRD!!!!
He felt guilty about being gay.
Hi everybody!
Hi Dr. Nick!
his suit against sarah palin was funnier. :D
https://www.yousendit.com/download/Y2orak93Uzg5NVd4dnc9PQ
Great post Kash.
Way to go legal profession. Way to protect Due Process from poor judges. Great job profession as a whole.
Gay guilt is the worst guilt.
jonathan lee riches is an american hero, and after his release from prison, he plans to accept an offer to join WILDMAN HARROLD's frivolous lawsuit practice group. a variance in firm policy will allow him to continue to file his complaints using crayons. we are excited.
Texas bar results have been posted on the web.
god damn louisiana sucks!
my job search is turning into a comedy...it's tragic.
-nervous T-10 1K
email job leads to nervoust101l@yahoo.com
Why are only half the names of NJ bar passers up (http://www.njbarexams.org/bar1.htm). This makes it very difficult to look up my friends to see if they passed.
Why are only half the names of NJ bar passers up (http://www.njbarexams.org/bar1.htm). This makes it very difficult to look up my friends to see if they passed.
Must have felt guilty about stealing Mr. Roger's shoes in addition to being gay and going to Tulane.
15/16 - check the NJ website again, they're all up.
SCOTUS has denied permission to file pro se to those such as Riches. Gotta pay to waste judicial time!
7 - Thanks for that link -- a true Riches classic. My favorite line is "I got Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol pregnant, it was either at Bristol Motor Speedway or while we were watching Juno in Juneau." The man is a literary genius.
Thanks be to 7...hilarious...
frivolous lawsuits are such jarvis probes
I read this post thinking it was done by Eli and noted that it was surprisingly quite good... then I noticed Kash wrote it.
Great post, Kash.
Perhaps this is petty, but I would suggest Kashmir bone up on the difference between federal and state courts before covering either. According to the article, the Louisiana Supreme Court did not ask the "Fifth Circuit" to step in, at least not as most readers would understand the "Fifth Circuit" to refer to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That's a federal court, and I think what Kash meant.
What happened here was that Louisiana's Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a state court, wasn't reviewing petitions. The Louisiana Supreme Court ordered that same state appellate court to do what it was supposed to do in the first place -- review the petitions. No one was "asked to step in." There might have been a story in that, right?
LET'S GO DUKE!