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Are you saying stochastic terrorism should be legal?
Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
171–180 of 360 posts
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a leak if the lawyers fuck up. The plaintiffs asked the defendents if they wanted to claim privilege on the contents and the defendents refused, the ball is in play.
First off, his "fuck up" was leaking it, second it's still protected under attorney client privilege if AJ didn't authorize it. Your attorney can't just leak (on purpose or accident) information you gave them and it be used against you. Just because you don't like X person don't allow the government to step on everyone's inalienable rights. If you went to trial for a traffic violation and your lawyer accidentally for…
Buts it's hard to claim privledge on documents you claimed did not exist. The Judge could review said documents and indicate they should have been proivided during discovery and sanction the laywers. The judge already went nuclear with issuing a default judgement against Jones.
Default judgement was entered in part for the games played by Jone's team during discovery. Hard to appeal that decision when your defense is "You can't punish us for lying just because we accidently sent you the truth."
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#173This kind of justice with special treatment only encourages people to believe in conspiracy theories I'm not sure that'll be effective, even though something had to be done
> special treatment
What special treatment?
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
First off, his "fuck up" was leaking it, second it's still protected under attorney client privilege if AJ didn't authorize it. Your attorney can't just leak (on purpose or accident) information you gave them and it be used against you. Just because you don't like X person don't allow the government to step on everyone's inalienable rights. If you went to trial for a traffic violation and your lawyer accidentally for…
Buts it's hard to claim privledge on documents you claimed did not exist. The Judge could review said documents and indicate they should have been proivided during discovery and sanction the laywers. The judge already went nuclear with issuing a default judgement against Jones. Default judgement was entered in part for the games played by Jone's team during discovery. Hard to appeal that decision when your defense is…
You only have to provide relevant documents requested by the court.
The entire phone was leaked and provided to another investigative body for an unrelated matter.
AJ did default on the case, but it ends at the ruling against him. Leaked information cannot be used in another investigation.
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories" I think you are a supporter of freedom of speech in general - that's something I thoroughly approve of too. I also think you are able to understand the difference between seeing a horrendous crime and seeing that crime and attempting to profit from it. That seems to be what this bloke did: He tried to change and engorge the narrative regarding t…
>> He tried to convince the world that the crime didn't actually happen and even worse tried to convince the world that the dead were actors and other nonsense. I'm a Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors. I'm also American. I'm pretty happy our country has not adopted laws against holocaust denial in the way Germany or Canada have. I appreciate the thought behind those laws. But I appreciate freedom of speech more.…
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Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
He claimed that a judgment of $2M would bankrupt Infowars. But emails revealed that, at times, revenue was $800K -per day-, and the judge asked him to explain how potentially less than 3 days revenue would have that effect.
InfoWars made $800K in one day, not _per_ day. Jones claims that was their best day ever. Which makes total sense to me... businesses have huge boom days, and plaintiff lawyers will happily imply you should multiply that figure by 365 days.
If you divide it by 20 before multiplying by 365, which is a charitable read to say the least, it would still be an insane amount of money.
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ignoring that Jones is a garbage human and just focusing on the case: that isn’t protected free speech? No, while there are Constitutional limits (especially when the injured party is a public figure, see NY Times v. Sullivan ), deliberate and often also reckless, harmful falsehood is not protected speech. > Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those w…
> deliberate and often also reckless, harmful falsehood is not protected speech IANAL (I am not a lawyer; and IANAAJA—I am not an Alex Jones apologist), but I think deserves qualification. My understanding is that it’s not the falsehood which is restricted, it’s the damage caused by purveying the falsehood. If I’m not mistaken I can claim (anywhere under US jurisdiction, unless under oath or otherwise legally sworn t…
While you’re right, that damages are an important factor, it’s worth noting that these don’t have to be strictly limited to direct monetary damages.
For example, Jones was defaulted on intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury’s compensatory damages were heavily weighted to IIED. So the damages can be abstract in some sense.
But yes, generally defamation requires both material false statements of fact, and damages to a specific party.
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
The opposing, though not necessarily contradictory cliche is of course some variation of “a lie makes it around the world before the truth is out of bed”. That’s the problem, there’s plenty of situations where the lie has done it’s damage long before the truth can achieve much beyond the academic.
I think this is an important point. Many of us here live in cities, but in rural America there is a stunning amount of people who really believe that Joe Biden lost the 2020 election and that there was a massive, coordinated campaign of voter fraud. In many dominantly red states, this is not considered a fringe conspiracy theory but more or less generally accepted as fact.
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Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#179It's a shame that while perjury during a civil trial is illegal, it's almost never prosecuted. His behavior was particularly egregious and I doubt this judgement will stop him from continuing to target everyone involved in the trial.
"The judge in the case, Maya Guerra Gamble, said she would entertain a motion to impose additional punishment against Mr. Jones and his lawyer for their courtroom conduct throughout the trial. Mr. Jones had to be frequently reminded by the judge to tell the truth while under oath."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-punit...
Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does this set a precedent that anyone who spouts conspiracy theories about an event is targetable by those who suffered from that event? Not in any legal sense. 1) Defamation is already well established in US law; no novel legal questions came up regarding the borders of protected speach in this case. 2) Precedents are never set at trials. In order for anything from this case to become precedent, it would need to b…
There may be due process concerns over refusing to follow the due process?
Jones was afforded due process. Due process requires you to participate in the _process_, which he refused to do repeatedly, for years.
He can appeal, but the authority for a trial court to issue a default judgement is not new precedent but rather well established. It’s quite _rare_, but it’s happened before.