691–700 of 787 posts
This is more than the amount that people that lied about WDM's in the middle East were ever fined with. Consider they killed millions. Please know that I am not siding with Jones but this is ludicrous.
In that case, the answer is not to fine Jones less, but to fine the WMD liars more.
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That makes it even worse. Defraud or harm the entire country and you pay less than defaming a handful of people. He deserves to pay them for causing them trouble for his own gain, but if this isn't a political example I don't know what is.
This is because of your ignorance of the courtroom process with a jury... When those large companies go in front of a jury they are respectful, they don't act like assholes to the jurors, they defend their positions well, they avoid making the jurors hate them. Jones did none of the above. He did, seemingly, everything possible to bias the jury against him. This is the pinnacle of arrogance and stupidity.
But a billion dollars. A billion dollar judgment. You don't think they're rubbing his face in it a little? Teaching us all a lesson about what happens?
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> reputation Very probably the matter is not with reputation. What seems to be more plausible instead is: -- the victims having had an angry mob risen against them (and of course in the context of having suffered a diremost loss); -- the responsible having financially exploited the situation.
> the responsible having financially exploited the situation. This has nothing to do with the lawsuit. It's not a defamation claim; it's not a damages claim. You'd have to make a claim for unjust enrichment.
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shouldn’t the harassers be tried ?
Some of them have been (for example: https://www.mcall.com/hc-sandy-hook-denier-harrassment-0225-... ) but the main problem is that it is, as most of us posting here know, difficult to track down the individuals directly performing the harassment. Alex Jones is directly inciting people to go harass the plaintiffs so he bears liability for his actions.
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(a) Stuff like this is supremely unhelpful and corrosive to the thread. (b) It's obviously not the case that Jones is getting a sympathetic hearing from this thread; instead, you're noticing mostly the randos posting pro-Jones stuff that lives briefly before being flagged to the bottom of the site.
In this thread there are many non-new accounts taking positions such as: - This infringes on the first amendment - He shouldn't be punished solely for his speech - What about this or that person who did X - The punishment is too much - Anyway, he'll never pay so it doesn't really matter All these strike me as being sympathetic to Jones. Why even post such things if not to elicit sympathy or muddy waters? Meanwhile yo…
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Did Alex Jones order anyone to do anything? Honest question.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stochastic_terrorism He could have anticipated his actions would lead to these outcomes.
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.
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> the responsible having financially exploited the situation. This has nothing to do with the lawsuit. It's not a defamation claim; it's not a damages claim. You'd have to make a claim for unjust enrichment.
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…
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.
( https://reason.com/volokh/2014/10/27/restitution-law-interes... )
Here we see a brief mention of Jesse Ventura's novel (in 2014) legal strategy of including a claim for unjust enrichment in his defamation suit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
(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"?)
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Hah. I just mentioned that one in a separate reply to you. I’d love a world where we continue to get Make No Law episodes, but I’d given up hope after it going dormant for a while.
He's better with Barro than when he's trying to make Legal Radiolab. :)
This is great news, but we should temper our expectations: It's likely that Jones will appeal and keep this tied up for years before he has to pay anything. Even if he is eventually obligated to pay some amount, it is unlikely to be what the jury just decided. And even if it is what the jury just decided, Jones' company is already "bankrupt" (yet still on the air) and he will almost certainly avoid liability through…
This is terrible news for free speech. But maybe great news for the unvaccinated who will be able to go after all the people that spread lies about them, and ostracize them from society for two years.
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> The courts are part of the government 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: “Alth…
What do you think will ultimately happen with the case?