CNN.com - Jury convicts video game defense killer - Aug 10, 2005

CNN.com - Jury convicts video game defense killer - Aug 10, 2005

So this kid kills three cops and then claims the video game Grand Theft Auto made him do it. Well, the jury says bullshit and convicts him of capital murder. Now the family of the victims is suing the video game manufacturer. ?????????????????? Remember the good old days when a family member's death was a tragedy and not a financial opportunity?? My take is that if the jury said the video game has nothing to do with it, then the civil case shouldn't even make it to the courtroom. It would be different if the kid had been found guilty because of insanity or something which would indicate the video game had a stake in this. But he wasn't.

The family is even trying to sue two stores, presumably for selling the game. Why two stores, did each store sell half of the game to him? There definitely needs to be some kind of laws put in to determine when civil suits can be filed....let's put tax money into figuring out when someone has really been wronged by a corporate entity and when personal responsibility is the deciding factor. Instead of wasting our money so these gold diggers (and not just the victim's families in this case, but all instances of random civil cases) can find a get rich scheme and make them work like the rest of us.

A common rule of thumb in my opinion for civil cases, if you wouldn't sue a janitor for doing whatever, then don't sue someone else 'cuz they got money. In this specific case, if you're not going to sue the person who actually killed your family members, don't sue a company with some indirect, unproven link to the tragedy.