As someone who's been closely following the Infowars/Free Speech Systems trials (watched all the depos, trial footage, etc.), all I can say is that I'm glad these families are finally getting justice. Even though I'm sure it'll be tied up in appeals for awhile (and reduced on appeal), hopefully it'll prevent future harassment campaigns against families when tragedies occur.
And before anyone says "but why wasn't Jones given a trial to determine his guilt? The first amendment is under attack!", Infowars has repeatedly failed to prepare its employees for depositions, refused to respond to discovery requests, and has perjured itself numerous times. The default judgements received in both this and the Texas cases were well deserved, and anyone with a less explosive personality and media presence would have been given far fewer chances to comply.
First amendment isn’t under attack. Alex Jones isn’t being punished by the govt. Ge attacked people, they responded back. Defamation law has always existed and people can always sue you for libel and slander.
Jones wasn’t awarded anything because he dropped the suit a few months after filing it.
Defamation cases are civil, so ending up in jail isn’t one of the possible outcomes.
Finally, defamation cases in the US are almost never resolved by determining whether or not a statement was factually accurate, so in general it is a mistake to infer anything from the result of a case alone (you always need to know the details of the decision).
For sure. I think the “was he awarded billions bit” just triggered me. It’s like, if we’re going to fight some stupid political proxy war via this court case, maybe we should take 10 seconds and actually find out the details of David court case.
You might be forgetting OJ was found guilty in Civil Court.
How can you be guilty in Civil Court and not guilty in Criminal Court? Easy. Two different criteria for guilt. In Criminal Court it must be shown beyond reasonable doubt that you committed the crime. In Civil Court it must be shown that it's more likely than not that you committed the crime. In the case of OJ what this means is it's more likely than not that he murdered his wife but it's not beyond reasonable doubt that he did so. OJ was acquitted of murder in Criminal Court and forced to pay his wife's family for damages in Civil Court since it's more likely than not that he murdered his wife.
Whether you think this is a great system or not is subjective but that's how the system works.
The standard for acquitting is reasonable doubt. You're presumed innocent until proven guilty, so in theory you aren't necessarily required to prove your innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt. While it may work differently in practice at times, that idea IS actually a great one.
So yes, it may still be possible that someone who is acquitted is in fact guilty, but the prosecution isn't allowed a second chance.
The courts are part of the government, and Constitutional limits on government power apply to civil liability; the First Amendment, quite notably, restricts the conditions in which defamation liability can be applied.
The Constitutional right to free speech has been construed to protect your right to criticize the government (generally) and those who hold governmental posts. The Constitution doesn't mention defamation directly, but the doctrine that your rights end where anothers begin means that if you should actually injure someone through your untruthful speech or writing, then you should pay restitution to them and possibly punitive damages. The laws vary depending on the state, of course.
Since Jones is seen to have intentionally caused these plaintiffs emotional distress, the plaintiffs are being awarded compensatory damages nearing $1 billion, however punitive damages will be considered next because of a Connecticut law that bars using false statements to sell products. (A hearing set for Nov. 7 will determine the amount of those damages.)
According to the law, all the plaintiffs had to prove was that Jones (1) knowingly made false statements that would cause the claimants emotional distress and (2) such distress and injury could be proved or substantiated. In this case, the government served primarily as a mediator between the private citizens on both sides.
Right, but that is not how the law is applied. In a civil lawsuit, court or the government is not the plaintiff or the defendant, and therefore first amendment protections do not apply. There are first amendment protections when public officials are involved in the defamation suit. But beyond that, it is well established that first amendment does not protect this kind of speech.
> Right, but that is not how the law is applied. In a civil lawsuit, court or the government is not the plaintiff or the defendant, and therefore first amendment protections do not apply.
It absolutely is, which is why thr First Amendment limits the conditions in which civil defamation damages can be awarded, see, e.g., Times v. Sullivan.
EDIT: In fact, Times v. Sullivan rejects this specific argument, saying: “Although this is a civil lawsuit between private parties, the Alabama courts have applied a state rule of law which petitioners claim to impose invalid restrictions on their constitutional freedoms of speech and press. It matters not that that law has been applied in a civil action [...]. The test is not the form in which state power has been applied but, whatever the form, whether such power has in fact been exercised.”
> There are first amendment protections when public officials are involved in the defamation suit. But beyond that, it is well established that first amendment does not protect this kind of speech.
This is completely wrong. Times v. Sullivan, the landmark case applying the 1A to defamation, and subsequent cases elaborating the Constitutional limits of defamation liability established both basic 1A rules for all defamation cases, and additional rules for public figures (not just public officials, but also others who seek public attention), and matters of public concern. Among the rules applicable to all cases, not just public figures and public concern are:
(1) Opinion is Constitutionally protected and cannot be defamation (as it could be in some jurisdictions before),
(2) Falsity is required element of defamation and must be proved by the plaintiff, it cannot be presumed with the truth as a defense (as, again, it was in some jurisdictions)
(3) Fault (at least simple negligence) is a Constitutionally-required required element; defamation cannot be strict liability (as, again, it was in some jurisdictions prior to the Constitutional rule being articulated by the Court),
I didn't say anything one way or the other about the public figure rule except (1) noting that the heightened standards concerned public figures and not only public officials as had been claimed in the post I was responding to, and (2) noting, again unlike claimed previously, it wasn’t the only Constitutional restriction on defamation liability.
You are correct that it is about the target, its just odd that you read something contrary to that into my comment.
For this compensatory damage award, that probably depends a lot on whether the trial judge and later the state appeals court think that the numbers returned by the jury for daamages are reasonably supported from the evidence, its possible either at trial or on appeal for the judgement to be different from tbe jury verdict. (There are also punitive damages to be determined later.) I haven’t followed the evidence closely enough to have an opinion on that.
Sure it is. The jury literally just found those damages. These aren't punitive damages, they're compensatory. Punitive damages are the next phase of the case.
Punitive damages in Connecticut civil cases are awarded in a later phase of the case. The jury recommends that punitive damages be assessed, and the number is worked out later. These are compensatory damages.
That's not obvious to me at all. Can a 9-figure media and supplements company inflict 25-50 million dollars on an individual? Sure they can. Selling the memory of a parent's murdered child and defaming them to the point where they are followed into different states by lunatics threatening their lives seems to easily cross that threshold. How disruptive would it be to my life if that happened to me? Over how many years? It's a huge amount of baseline injury, and then it's multiplied by the demonstrable profits earned by Free Speech Systems at their expense.
Remember, it's almost a billion dollars because twenty children were murdered at Sandy Hook, and Jones' company managed to target all of the parents. If only one parent had sued, we wouldn't be batting an eyelash at the resulting damages. But Jones built an immensely powerful media machine, and then aimed it very carefully at his own testicles. Play stupid games, &c &c.
Well, to be frank, it doesn't matter. Some people probably think any kind of damages for defamation are ridiculous. Others probably think this wasn't enough. It doesn't matter though, because you weren't selected to serve on the jury at the trial. You didn't see the evidence, you didn't get to observe jones' conduct, you didn't sit through days and days of testimony about how horrible and traumatic it was for the families of sandy hook to lose their children and then be called 'crisis actors' by Alex Jones repeatedly. His followers were literally harassing the parents in public.
These damages may be above average and the highest ever in a defamation trial, but Alex Jones really took being a defamatory piece of shit to a new level.
People seemed to have no problem with the idea that Oberlin could have inflicted $36MM against a family. I didn't either! That's how tort damages work.
The Oberlin case had damages of $25 million, not $36 million, and that was the combined award to number of individuals plus a company that suffered a significant loss of revenue.
Apples & oranges again? Hogan is a public figure who might actually lose out on a hundred mil due to reputation damage. A average middle class USA family, not so much.
Anyway if it isn't punitive shouldn't there be some kind of account for how the number was arrived at? I don't see it in the article.
> If only one parent had sued, we wouldn't be batting an eyelash at the resulting damages.
This is not really a convincing response to my comment on the per-family damages:
>> Nobody involved had a reputation that was worth $100 million dollars.
You can't lose value you never had.
> How disruptive would it be to my life if that happened to me? Over how many years?
However disruptive it was, the damages could not reach $100 million unless you either (a) spent $100 million dealing with the disruption, or (b) forwent $100 million of earnings in order to deal with the disruption. (Or any combination.) Again, that hasn't happened. You can't deal $100 million of economic damage to someone who doesn't possess assets worth $100 million. That is a major reason for the concept of punitive damages.
"You can't lose value you never had" isn't a coherent argument. People are routinely awarded damages far greater than their net worths for all sorts of torts. By the logic you're using, if I go to Starbucks and steal the eyeballs out of the barista, I'm only asymptotically on the hook for a lifetime's worth of barista earnings.
I think you'd find --- criminal liability aside --- that you'd be on the hook for more than the lifetime earnings of a Starbucks barista and the cost of medical care and a seeing eye dog.
You sound very sure of this, but I am less sure. Disgorgement is a remedy, in US law, for torts in general. Damages are especially constrained in defamation claims, because of the first amendment, but defamation is just one of five claims against Jones, all of which he was found guilty of --- intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, false light invasion of privacy, and, most notably, violating the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices act.
I'm not saying I'm sure these numbers will hold up (punitive damages under CUTPA are uncapped, though!), but I think the story about how the jury could have reached these numbers is a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be.
In particular:
(1) It's not just defamation.
(2) You do not in fact need to make a "claim for unjust enrichment" to recover profits earned through an intentional tort.
> You do not in fact need to make a "claim for unjust enrichment" to recover profits earned through an intentional tort.
I would need a lot more than your assertion to be convinced of this. Here's Ward Farnsworth introducing his book, Restitution: Civil Liability for Unjust Enrichment:
> Restitution is the mirror image of tort law. You sue in tort to recover for losses that you have suffered. You bring a restitution claim to recover gains that another party has obtained. In some cases it makes no difference which claim you bring, because your losses and the other side's gains are the same. Or you might prefer a tort claim because your losses are bigger than the defendant's gains, as usually is true when you suffer damage in an accident. But sometimes going after the defendant's gains will allow a much bigger recovery, or is the plaintiff's only way to recover at all.
> Restitution is the great overlooked topic in American private law. In this country most students can't learn about it even if they want to; few schools teach the subject. Students only hear about restitution as the name of an occasional remedy in contract cases. But restitution is the name of a claim, not just a remedy. So lawyers often overlook restitution and sometimes try to use tort and contract to solve problems that restitution law would handle better. Missing or misunderstanding the right to go after a defendant's gains can be a very expensive oversight.
(From the piece: "The jury awarded plaintiff $500,000 for defamation, and $1,345,477.25 on the unjust enrichment theory.")
Why would he do that, if it were just part of how all torts are handled? What would be unusual about it? (And why would Ward Farnsworth introduce the subject by pointing out that "tort claims and restitution claims are opposite things"?)
It’s not about what the reputation was worth, it is about what he made off it. The point of the justice system is to set a precedent, if the damages are too low, you just set a precedent where lawsuits are just business expenses and you can still make money off these things.
Comparable damage? Can you imagine your young daughter one days goes to school, never comes back because she bled to death in a corridor there, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up and are a fake?
One thing I really don't understand about the US of A is, while it is abominously violent, still, a pork like Alex Jones hasn't been physically attacked by anyone. It's like there's a complete split in society somehow. In my books comparable damage would be everything and all money he owns, plus any he will, minus maybe $9 per day. Couldn't the jury have voted for such a verdict, why does it have to be an amount, why not an "everything"?
He was just on his live show telling viewers to send money without worry: nothing they sent now would ever go to these families because he is declaring bankruptcy.
Whatever bankruptcy judge he ends up before might not be amused by such antics.
Bankruptcy doesn't allow you to hide money. The families are added to the list of creditors seeking relief and the judge will order them accordingly. The families are likely to be the top creditor and will get every penny from his estate.
I’m not suggesting he can hide money. He gives up everything he has of bankruptcy date, and then starts fresh with a new company and the same followers and same advertisers paying him to lead those followers.
I think his greatest asset is his personality and following, and he’ll be able to monetize that post-bankruptcy. The longer he drags out the court cases, the longer he delays that, so hopefully he just gets on with him and pays out everything he has.
> Can you imagine your young daughter one days goes to school, never comes back because she bled to death in a corridor there, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up and are a fake?
Sure, we have a scenario in three parts:
1. Your daughter goes to school.
2. She bleeds to death in a corridor.
3. You get attacked by strangers claiming you are a phony.
Don't you think the damage occurs in step 2? What did Alex Jones have to do with that?
Can you imagine meeting an alien who reveals to you a better way of life, founding a religion according to his teachings, attracting followers, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up? What would they owe you?
That's not a conclusion you can reach by reading this comment thread. People are falling over themselves to point out that these families lost their children. Why?
> People are falling over themselves to point out that these families lost their children. Why?
Because that's what Alex Jones targeted to abuse these people. He didn't kill their children, but he did take people whose children were killed, and lie about that fact in order to attack these people for money.
They are, they're just usually handled in a separate phase. In CT, judges apparently work them out after a jury recommends that punitive damages get handed out; in TX, the jury deliberates twice, once for compensatory and once for punitive damages.
The judge threatened to throw Alex in jail for saying he was innocent to the jury. You can't really get more dystopian than that. Imagine if that happened during your own trial, what would you do? Would you still want to testify.
There were a few other things the judge barred him from saying during his testimony, yet the prosecution spent days talking about them. How is that even remotely fair. Ridiculous verdict from a ridiculous show trial. Kangaroos ashamed everywhere.
The concept you're upset with here is "the rules of evidence". You'll find that in a variety of ways, your freedom of expression is intensely curtailed in a court of law, and you cannot in fact make any argument you'd like. In particular, when you've lost a trial by deliberately defaulting it, you cannot re-raise the issues the trial settled in the damages phase of the trial. You lost, and those issues are now off the table. That's how trials work.
People are Big Mad about the fact that Jones wasn't allowed to proclaim his ignorance on the stand. But I'm guessing that if you surveyed those people, fewer than 50% would be aware that he was tried and found liable already, and that the "trial" we're discussing is simply the damages phase of the trial he lost.
Imagine being accused of murdering someone. You ask for a jury trial. The prosecution asks you to turn over the murder weapon. You plead that you don't have the murder weapon because you are innocent. The judge tells you you have 5 days to turn over all the knives you ever bought. You don't, because you don't know where some of them are. The judge doesn't believe you.
The Dystopian Part:
The Judge finds you guilty of murder by default, without hearing any evidence of your guilt, and denies you your jury trial, based on the justification that you did not turn over a couple of the knives.
Guilt and Punishment:
The judge proceeds to hold what amounts to a memorial service, as family member after family member is called up to the stand by the prosecution and they cry in front of the jury over their lost loved one. Your lawyer can't effectively question a crying family member as that makes them seem like a cruel psychopath.
Should you take the stand in your defence, the judge threatens you and your lawyer with contempt, and by implication jail, if you go up there and say you're innocent. There's a list of things you're not allowed to talk about because they would imply your innocence. And you were already found guilty! Therefore, saying you're innocent would be perjury.
You're only allowed to answer with "yes", "no" or "I don't know" when the prosecution calls you up to the stand. After they berate you for half a day, and your defence lawyer objects to the judge losing control, the judge ends the day by yelling at your lawyer that she won't stand for any nonsense from now on. That she hasn't found a lawyer in contempt in all her career, but she's ready to do it now. The next day is when you're supposed to testify in your defence.
You decline to take the stand.
Final Instructions:
The judge tells the jury it isn't allowed to question or speculate on what basis you where found guilty, just that there are only here to determine your punishment.
This is what I'm upset with. This was a political show trial, engineered for a specific verdict.
But that would be a criminal trial. This was a civil trial. I'm not even American and I understand the difference! The two processes work completely differently, and comparing them like this doesn't make sense.
As to the points you've made:
* Default judgment: If you repeatedly do not show up for a trial, then at a certain point the trial needs to still continue. You should not be able to indefinitely put off a case just by refusing to turn up. If this were a criminal case, Jones would be forced to be there, as it's a civil case this is the alternative (as I understand it).
* Not having evidence: would work a lot better as a defence if (a) you genuinely contested it, and (b) you didn't send all the evidence that you supposedly couldn't find to the opposition lawyer halfway through the case by accident
* The civil case was split into two parts: one to determine fault, and the other to determine damages. As previously mentioned, Jones refused to take part in the trial that would have determined whether he was guilty or not, and therefore a default judgement was given. If he wanted to claim he was innocent, he should have done it then. Again, this is, as I understand it, standard practice for a civil trial.
* During a discussion of how much damages you should pay, given you were found guilty, you cannot argue to the jury that you are innocent. This has already been decided - typically with your involvement, assuming you don't just refuse to turn up - so this is just not in question any more.
I make the comparison because the judge denied Alex a jury trial, based on him not turning over evidence, and not him missing court dates. Some of the evidence he failed to turn over is financial data. The argument made was that the lack of this evidence would prejudice the jury from finding Alex guilty. The judge sided with the prosecution on this so she defaulted him. Specifically the prosecution was making the argument that Alex would see his google analytics go up when he talked about Sandy Hook, and responded to it. While plausible, it hasn't really been proven that he ever even looked at his google Analytics. He blabbers on like a radio talk show host. As a percentage of all he said, Sandy Hood was a very small part of his coverage.
This gets even more murky because the financial evidence, such as his earning, is relevant to damages, and not really to guilt. And really, in the end the prosecution was able to estimate his earnings by expert testimony during the damages portion. So was it actually critical. Yet Alex was found guilty based on failing to provide it. And if it was critical, at most it established damages, not guilt.
Also, can you imagine how much the prosecution is prejudiced in a criminal trail where the defendant fails to hand over the murder weapon. Yet a jury trail is still allowed proceed.
* Default Judgment:
I'm not aware of Alex missing any days where he needed to be there pretrial. He sat through 10 days of depositions. Any specific articles you can link where he missed a pre-trial date he had to be there for?
* Not having evidence.
a) What does genuinely contested really mean?
b) That did not happen. The prosecution found an email with an attached screenshot containing a keyword. This was the gotcha moment in his previous trial. Just very dubious. Since attached screenshots are not easily searchable for keywords, and could have been easily missed without any malice by his lawyer.
* Jones was never allowed to take part in a "take part in the trial that would have determined whether he was guilty or not". Every interview on the subject, Jones decries not being allowed do process. He wanted to be able to state facts of his case to a jury, his lawyers wanted to make constitutional arguments to the jury, and so on.
In a criminal case, this is equivalent to standing in your doorway and physically blocking the police from executing a lawful warrant. Except, in that case, the police have recourse -- they can push you aside and execute a search. That isn't possible in civil cases; the only power a court has to compel cooperation with discovery is threatening a default judgement. This is why responding to discovery is important, and it's why the punishment for failing to do so is "you lose". Otherwise, all plaintiffs in all civil cases would simply ignore discovery and the courts would be mostly useless.
Jones failed to EVEN RESPOND to multiple discovery requests by the plaintiffs. Quoting from the order [1]:
"One month after remand, plaintiff wrote to the Defendants inquiring about overdue responses. Plaintiffs offered defendant an additional 14 days... More than three weeks later, with no response provided, Plaintiffs brought the motion". The order goes on to explain that refusing to even respond to discovery requests is a pattern of behavior and not a one-off mistake.
Again, he didn't refuse to turn over discovered documents. He didn't even say "I don't have that". He just straight up ghosted opposing counsel's request. Didn't respond!!!
You. Cannot. Ignore. Discovery.
You can respond and say "I don't have that". Of course, if you and your counsel knowingly and brazenly lie about not having a document, then civil damages are probably the least of your concerns because you will end up in prison and your lawyer will be disbarred. But, assuming "I don't have that" is true (or at least cannot be proved false beyond a reasonable doubt), then "I don't have that" is an acceptable response.
What you CANNOT do is simply ignore the request and expect a trial to proceed normally prior completion of discovery.
Ignoring discovery requests is a wildly insane thing for a lawyer to do. Failing to even respond to a discovery request after a reminder and extension from the opposing counsel -- and doing so multiple times over several trials -- is literally unfathomable to me.
There are only three reasons to do this. The first is that the discovered documents would be even more damaging than a default judgement in plaintiff's favor. The second is WILD incompetence. The third is mental instability. Those are the only three reasons, because... You. Cannot. Ignore. Discovery.
This isn't an overdue homework assignment or some procedural snafu. Discovery is a core part of a trial, and messing around with it is a huge deal. Ignoring discovery is, in most cases, way worse than a guilty verdict. You lose, you piss off the judge, and any jury will most likely assume you have something to hide that is even worse than a guilty verdict.
I might ignore a discovery request if I felt that the documents in question would likely result in criminal prosecution or additional, much more serious, civil cases. That's the only rational reason that I can think of to ignore discovery. Because, seriously seriously seriously, You. Cannot. Ignore. Discovery.
It's possible that this was just wild incompetence. It's possible that Jones is arrogant enough to think he is above the court. I do not know. But the behavior of him and his lawyers in these cases is beyond baffling. If they aren't hiding something criminal, and aren't hiding the most damning possible evidence, then they are either incompetent or insane.
Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could. To say the judges have been lenient with Infowars is an understatement - if you or I were in a civil suit, we would have been defaulted far quicker than Jones was because the judges wouldn't have to worry about a media circus spiraling out from it. Jones did not just throw out a discovery request assuming it was junk mail one time, this was completely intentional and forced the court's hand.
In the Texas trial, I believe Andino Reynal (the counsel at trial) was the 13th attorney they had retained. Yes, 13. At this point, I'm convinced Alex Jones is right up there with Faketoshi as the worst client you could ever have.
> To say the judges have been lenient with Infowars is an understatement
The man was fined more than any other person in the history of humanity for saying words. A billion dollars! pharmaceutical companies that knowingly and willfully killed people have not been fined to such an extent.
And yet Alex was denied the ability to say words in his defence during his trial. "words" like "I'm innocent".
Citizens respect the outcomes of trials not because they follow a some set procedure, but because they think justice happened.
In major political case, in which a a populist talk show host, questioned the official narrative around an event. The state would not allow him to have his say, to raise constitutional issues. While the prosecution spent days talking about things he wasn't allowed to, and opened the trial by telling the jury this is their opportunity to take away Alex's megaphone, to silence him forever.
Alex might need to leave America, like Snowden, and continue his talk show abroad. Will the freest country in the world confiscate his passport to prevent that from happening.
This is a battle for public opinion. You might think you won this, but you haven't really.
>>Citizens respect the outcomes of trials not because they follow a some set procedure, but because they think justice happened.
I'm following this discussion as it's educational, but fwiw, dear God no. I trust trials, inasmuch as I do, because I believe they follow a known, afore-indicated and public procedure, which is the only remotely meaningfilul thing that can try to provide equality of treatment and a sane outcome.
> The state would not allow him to have his say, to raise constitutional issues
I could just quote thwayunion's comments on not being allowed to re-litigate issues that were already decided on in an attempt to derail the damages phase of the trial, but Jones already attempted to argue that what he was doing was protected speech. (In fact, I wasn't even going to respond until I remembered his TCPA motions where he tried just that.)
In De La Rosa v. Alex Jones et al, (D-1-GN-18-001842, 345th District Court of Travis County, Texas), Infowars filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which is implemented in Texas under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA). From [0]:
> "The [TCPA] protects citizens who petition or speak on matters of public concern from retaliatory lawsuits that seek to intimidate or silence them." In re Lipsky, 460 S.W.3d 579, 584 (Tex. 2015) (orig. proceeding). The protection comes in the form of a motion to dismiss a suit that would stifle the defendants' exercise of those rights.
In the anti-SLAPP motion, Jones' attorneys argued the case on its merits - that is, at this point in the trial, they weren't attempting to delay and obstruct by any means necessary, they were actually cooperating with the court.
And yet, despite actually working with the court, their motion was denied, meaning the lawsuit was not dismissed for infringing upon Jones' first amendment rights. And this is extremely notable since the TCPA is one of the most aggressive anti-SLAPP statues in the country - that is, if you lose an anti-SLAPP motion in Texas, your speech is so insanely out of line that basically no court would consider it to be defensible under the first amendment. Again, from [0]:
> CONCLUSION
> Having determined that the parents established a prima facie case for defamation per se that was not subject to the defense raised by Appellants, we affirm the district court's order denying Appellants' motion to dismiss.
His other anti-SLAPP motions also failed.
In summary, Jones already tried the first amendment defense, and lost. Therefore, even if he cooperated and wasn't defaulted on, he would still be barred from presenting a free speech defense during the damages hearing, because the court had already decided that his speech was not protected by the first amendment.
> You lose, you piss off the judge, and any jury will most likely assume you have something to hide that is even worse than a guilty verdict.
Also note that in a civil trial you do not have a right against self-incrimination. You can refuse to testify but your opponent can use your lack of testimony against you.
The contention from his lawyers was that no other libel case again a media company resulted in them having to turn over as much data as Alex had to. That he turned over multiple gigabytes of data.
So to say he "ignored discovery" is probably not what happened here.
Just the fact that he sat through 10 days of depositions, imagine getting interrogated for 10 days. Has to be close to torturous.
Turning over all your email/phone data, your financial records, email and phone data from all your employees, and still being asked for more and more. I doubt the NY times, or CNN would ever be forced to turn over all their employee emails in a libel case.
Eventually he wasn't going to able to turn over something. For example he may have not had google analytics to his youtube channel that youtube took down.
You yourself might assume that Alex was going to get a fair trial if he cooperated more with discover. But is that even a reasonable assumption. His own lawyers may have know that this was a political case he was going to lose no matter what, if the discovery process was already unusually intrusive.
You are correct that in a criminal case Alex's obstruction of the discovery process would have had different outcomes.
In a criminal case, the prosecution does not typically rely on a defendant's cooperation with a discovery process. Instead, the state obtains a warrant to search the defendant's property and gather the evidence required to build their case. If this were a criminal trial, the police would have shown up at Alex's house and place of work. If Alex refused to let the police search his property, they would have used whatever physical force was necessary to remove Alex and execute a lawful search of his property. Then a trial would have happened using any lawfully discovered evidence. Jones cannot ignore a warrant; guns and battering rams and overwhelming force will compel him to comply.
This sequence of events is not possible in civil cases, because civil courts do not typically use force to compel discovery. Instead, they have only the threat of a default judgement to compel discovery. The state has less power to compel discovery, so in cases of obstruction the recourse to the aggrieved party is different.
The common denominator is that proper trial cannot happen if one party can arbitrarily withhold key evidence from the other party. You CANNOT simply refuse to let the police execute a lawful warrant and expect to proceed with a normal trial. The state will execute the warrant. Similarly, you CANNOT simply refuse to share evidence with the plaintiff and expect to proceed with a normal trial. The state will not bring a battering ram to your home, but it will find you guilty by default.
This wasn't a show trial, and Alex wasn't "refused" a trial. He had a right to a trial to determine innocence or guilt. He chose to give up that right by repeatedly and willfully refusing the comply with discovery requests.
Ah yes, we should let the government decide that some people are "highly impressionable" and therefore not human beings with agency or rights. That's definitely not a terrifying precedent to set, nothing to see here
If I tell you to harass families and you go ahead and do so, both you and I ought face legal risk. And that's what's happening here. As this is an entirely private tort between private individuals, it is up to the individuals involved to decide which of the many responsible parties they wish to sue.
As it happens, Alex Jones is also enjoying his prerogative to sue others for defamation. And it's going to come down to a jury that decides whether those being sued by Alex Jones are liable for his stated damages.
No, we let the courts decide and they did. Jones isn't being sent to prison, he is just being forced to compensate the people his blatant lying harmed. I bet if Jones had spent the last 10 years constantly saying that you ate babies and this caused people to track you down and harass you then you would want him to stop and compensate you.
The only terrifying precedent is to allow shameless grifters like Alex Jones to lie with complete impunity no matter how much harm his lies cause.
This is what the erosion of personal responsibility and accountability looks like. Alex Jones isnt responsible if stupid impressionable people watch his show and do stupid things. That is absurd and absolutely chilling in regards to free speech. Perhaps it even sets a new precedent that everyone who posts a comment/video/podcast online is now responsible for any illegal actions that any of their viewer commit.
Free speech isn’t simply the ability to say anything at anytime.
If you lie under oath don’t expect a free speech argument to work. Similarly if you personally spread damaging lies, free speech doesn’t help etc etc.
Free speech is most protected when when you take a political or religious stance, but the boundaries shrink dramatically when you talk about someone specific especially if they are simply a member of the general public.
You can see that this isn’t the case with a trivial example, like if your significant other or a family member was killed and I or someone else riled you up and enabled you and lied to you and convinced you to go kill someone else who didn’t kill your family member not only would I be held legally/criminally accountable but we intuitively understand this as morally wrong as a society.
No free speech is harmed here and the First Amendment protects you from the government silencing your speech.
These are the legal hot takes of our times; on HN no less.
There aren't laws against defamation and libel because it's super meany. It's because the damages people sustain from having lies spread around town about them.
Spewing hatred and demonstrably false utter bullshit and stirring up people knowingly is what he has and continues to do. Just like any number of other sociopathic fuckwits out there and through the ages.
“Personal responsibility and accountability “ is exacty what he’s being held accountable for because /his/ actions, /his/ drivel, /his/ psychotic vitriol was /knowingly/, /willingly/, and /joyfully/ used to cause these problems.
Your logic would dictate that no one is ever at fault for causing anything. It’s the dipshits who are dumb enough to go with them who are at fault.
I mean, step back and listen to yourself for a moment.
Unless you are too far gone you MIGHT recognize the absurdity of your views.
I am so fucking tired of human trash like him, Glenn Beck, Joe Rogan, Trump, insert hundreds of other pieces of shit getting to do literally whatever they want because “personal accountability” dictates that what they said was just words and free speech and they aren’t at fault.
Alex Jones wasnt the mastermind who created this conspiracy theory. The crisis actors conspiracy theory was already popular on the internet a couple days after the incident, months to years before Alex Jones covered it. There were numerous people speculating at the time about some strange discrepencies in the official narrative and footage which was able to convince some otherwise very reasonable people that there was a possibility that it was a hoax. So no, it cant be said for certain that he knew it was false. And no, he cant be blamed for covering a popular conspiracy theory on his show when its well known that he performs a conspiracy theory talkshow. I dont understand why this whole conspiracy which already existed is being attributed to Alex Jones. Perhaps just because he has a popular show? This is a clear case of punishing a citizen for having the wrong opinion.
I'm pretty sure it's a clear case of punishing a citizen for building a hundred million dollar supplement business on false allegations about the parents of dead children that were made so repeatedly they had to go into hiding, and then boycotting the resulting defamation trial. But tomato, tomahto.
Five minutes of research shows that this isn't true and that he knew.
I'm not sure anyone is seriously attributing the conspiracy theory to him, they are attributing to him that he spread it, publicly attacking the families while making money doing so.
Seems like a word that needed to be invented to attribute responsibility to someone who isn't actually responsible. Would be a great tool for a totalitarian state to abuse.
There's quite a few passages in the bible (among many books) that, if recited, could be described as "stochastic terrorism". That is, they could "inspire violence". However, I'm sure double standards would be applied rigorously - to make sure it's not a problem for "the right people".
If that's his actual "crime", I don't like the way this is going. What goes around, comes around.
No but this still establishes a scary new precedent; that any podcaster/videomaker is now legally responsible for any illegal actions that their viewers commit on their own accord. I can imagine how this will result in people being scared to criticize any leader or person in power because their comment/video might inspire some crazy person to harass them for which they will be found legally responsible.
Omg no it doesn’t. You know damn well that some random streamer or podcaster isn’t the same as some of these heavy hitters of insanity.
And even ignoring that then YES, YES they should be held accountable if they are knowingly spewing falsehoods and stirring up people and it causes shit like that.
“Free speech” != “I can be a total fuckwad and say whatever so want without any repercussions!”
I dont think different standards should apply to someone just because they have a popular show.
Sue the individuals who actually committed the acts of harassment, not Alex Jones. The people actually responsible for the harassment are getting away with it unscathed here, while a performer is punished. This isnt justice.
It's not a different standard for having a popular show. It's the same standard, scaled by the reach and impact of his show. It's like the difference between plowing into a crowd of people on a dirt bike and plowing into a crowd of people with a semi truck. And, I assure you, Alex Jones is culpable under US law for the harassment these parents endured, just as someone who destroys your professional reputation is culpable from the losses you endure when unrelated people incorrectly refuse to hire you.
It’s like there is this wall between US people’s understanding of free speech and a usual EU residents’. The same way Holocaust denial should be punishable, there are sane rules that must be abided, otherwise only chaos ensues. It won’t take you down an Orwellian dystopia any time soon, if anything, allowing these criminals selling an alternative reality will.
American right-wing authoritarians have a weird relationship with the slippery slope fallacy. On the one hand, holding someone accountable for making claims which they admitted they knew were false, leading to demonstrable harm to the victims' families, then failing even to comply with court procedure or instructions, is such a slippery slope that clearly the entire first amendment (which isn't even relevant in this case) at risk. See also: gun laws. On the other hand, draconian anti-abortion laws supposedly aren't a slippery slope at all, even though they have already resulted in thousands of women being denied life-saving medications for completely unrelated medical conditions. It's almost like the they're picking and choosing when to use these arguments (see also: originalism) based on something other than logic or morality.
What's really abhorrent is that people are invoking "freedom" (in this case of speech) to defend someone who is a major player in the movement toward authoritarian control over literally every part of our lives. If I hadn't lost all respect for such people decades ago, I certainly would now.
>wall between US people’s understanding of free speech and a usual EU residents’
If the split so nicely mirrored political boundaries we wouldn't be having this discussion. We're having this discussion because incompatible ideologies are fighting for control of one country.
And before anyone says "but why wasn't Jones given a trial to determine his guilt? The first amendment is under attack!", Infowars has repeatedly failed to prepare its employees for depositions, refused to respond to discovery requests, and has perjured itself numerous times. The default judgements received in both this and the Texas cases were well deserved, and anyone with a less explosive personality and media presence would have been given far fewer chances to comply.