Alabama paper belittles Devin Moore's "games made me do it" plea

12:35 PM on 09.20.2007   |   Jim Sterling

15 comments

I posted a few days ago that Devin Moore, the nutjob who killed two cops and a dispatcher in 2003, was appealing his death sentence by blaming the rampage on Grand Theft Auto. Although it's obvious that some morons will use Moore's idiotic statement to their own anti-game advantage, it's nice to see that not all media outlets are completely retarded. Alabama newspaper The Montgomery Adviser quite rightly put Moore's selfish claims into perspective with an editorial:

The notion that the courts should take into account whether someone was exposed to violent video games as a reason for that person murdering someone has no real place in the criminal judicial process…

If courts started routinely to allow exposure to fictional violence in such things as video games and movies as a way to avoid or minimize punishment for violent acts, it could have a huge, negative effect on the nation's entire criminal process. Every violent criminal has been exposed to fictional violence in some form…

Millions of people, young and old, choose to watch violent movies and play violent video games and never harm anyone because of it.

Parents should monitor what their children watch… Consumer groups should campaign to minimize violent content… But those arguments belong in the court of public opinion, not in a criminal courtroom where a murder trial is being conducted.

Moore has currently bolstered his pathetic appeal by playing the race card, one of the most overplayed cards of all time. As ever, others will buy into that crap since it serves their own ends, but hopefully some more intelligent people can see through his garbage very much like the above writer. No videogame ever made has truly caused somebody to commit murder, and I do like it when people outside the games industry are sensible enough to admit that too.