John B. Thompson, J.D., M.A. 5721 Riviera Drive Coral Gables, Florida 33146 305-666-4366 amendmentone@comcast.

net
June 18, 2013 ACAP and Ken Marvin Director of Lawyer Regulation The Florida Bar 651 E. Jefferson St. Tallahassee, Florida 32399 Re: Formal Sworn Bar Complaint against Florida Bar Member Ronald E. Sholes, Florida Bar #536741 Dear ACAP and Ken Marvin: As you know, The Florida Bar is presently, by self-arrogation, in the business of regulating lawyers speech about everything. For example, then Bar President Hank Coxe said I had to be disciplined by The Bar Because of your tone in telling the truth about a bizarre Circuit Court judge (reiterating what the Third DCA had said about him) and for my tone in my pro bono labors against porn lawyers distributing adult material to children. The certainly would discipline Jesus for his tone in taking on the Pharisees and the money changers, wouldnt it? Just as importantly, The Bar is presently, illegally and unconstitutionally, harassing with Nazilike disciplinary zeal a Ft. Lauderdale lawyer for truthful comments about corrupted, incompetent, and lazy Broward County judges, simply because those hot-wired judges find the truth hurts. So, The Bar, volitionally, has decided to revoke the First Amendment rights of lawyers, just as our federal government has decided to revoke the First as well as the Fourth Amendments (see NSA, James Rosen, and Attkisson scandals). Fascism is on the march, just as Justice Douglas predicted in Lathrop: Eventually integrated state bars will become goose-stepping brigades intent upon forcing conformity on a previously independent bar. So, since The Bar is in the speech code enforcement business 24/7/365 for anything whatsoever a lawyer might say in any setting (dead Bar Governor Steve Chayin: Any lawyer who does not support gay adoption should be disbarred), then I, in order to extend the logic of The Bars position, file this formal sworn complaint against Jacksonville lawyer Ron Sholes who has placed billboards both northbound and southbound on I-95 in Jacksonville, proclaiming: You hurt? We FIGHT! Here is a similar image of Ron Sholes found on the Internet at http://www.print2webcorp.com/news/Jacksonville/MayportMirror/20101209/img/a_2_p10.jpg . Note that Sholes is pictured rolling up his sleeves as if readying for a fist fight. How professional.

If you go to Sholes web site found at http://www.ronsholespa.com/ , you will see that Sholes claims, At the Law Offices of Ronald E. Sholes in Jacksonville, Florida, we bring a militarylike commitment to our criminal defense and personal injury cases. Wow, heres the tactical equivalent of carpet bombing in the courtroom. How professional. Sholes even has a fighter jet and an aircraft carrier pictured on his web site. The Bar, by its own proclamations, says lawyers are to avoid promotions extraneous to the actual practice of law. I and others are wondering if this very public, very lucrative celebration of wartime bellicosity by Mr. Sholes is consistent with the image that The Bar and then Florida Supreme Court Justice Cantero have sought to impose upon the practice of law? Put another way, how can The Florida Bar allow Mr. Sholes to militarize the practice of law, even to the point of picturing himself readying for hand-to-hand battle and celebrating images of the weapons of war, while at the same time The Bar harassed me for my tone and while it harasses presently a reformist lawyer, Bill Gelin, who has helped clean up the Broward judicial cesspool through his public-spirited law blog? Put yet another way so that even the outgoing Bar President can understand it: If The Bar is going to be the speech police for some lawyers how can it avoid being the speech police for all lawyers without running afoul of equal protection claims that arise from arbitrary selective prosecution of some speech and not others? Here is a relevant fact: In November 2005, the Florida Supreme Court whacked a law firm for advertising that it would fight for its clients like pitt bulls. Quoting the Court, These devices, which invoke the breed of dog known as the pit bull, demean all lawyers and thereby harm both the legal profession and the publics trust and confidence in our system of justice. See the assault upon the First Amendment by the High Court at http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2005/sc04-40.pdf. Not surprisingly, Justice Cantero, aka Miss Manners, was on the court at that time. So, this is my formal complaint against Mr. Sholes. Either The Bar disciplines him for such speech that militarizes the practice of law or it gets out of the speech code business altogether, for if what Sholes is doing is not over the line, then, for all intents and purposes, there is no line anywhere as to any speech in which a lawyer might engage. Choose wisely. Get consistent. Or get the heck out of The First Amendment protects us and our friends but not our critics business. Signed, John B. Thompson, 6/18/13 Copies: Lots of folks, including Pit Bull Attorney John Robert Pape Bill Gelin and Norm Kent Bob Norman Rumpole ACLU Florida Supreme Chief Justice Ricky Polston, who apparently has, in his own words in the Liberty Counsel case dissent, abdicated the Courts duty to supervise The Florida Bar. Wake up, Chief Justice, before the entire Bar mechanism collapses upon its fascistic self.