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Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#761

Post by AnimalMuppet »

permo-w wrote: post #272
dexwiz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt. The people who believe this kind of stuff will just say it's the deep state trying to cover up their conspiracy or some equally asinine garbage. They have a persecution fetish, and any sort of punishment will just cause them to double down.

odds are Alex Jones will move somewhere with a poor judicial relationship with the US and add this to his narrative

Don't give him ideas.

But if he does, making money from this trash (or at least from a US audience for it) may be harder.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#762

Post by mcphage »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #759
mcphage wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't you think the damage occurs in step 2? What did Alex Jones have to do with that? Damage occurred in both steps 2 & 3, but as you point out, Alex Jones had nothing to do with step 2, so this case is about step 3.

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.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#763

Post by [deleted] »

derac wrote: post #630
betwixthewires wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The judgement was decided by jury...

[deleted]

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#764

Post by betwixthewires »

pixl97 wrote: post #735
betwixthewires wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, sure, he's a fuckhead. He's a dumbass, he's a clown, he's not a smart man. He is an asshole. 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?

Rule number one is "Do not be a fuckhead in court". Rule number two is "Don't be a fuckhead about children" It is the juries duty to teach you a lesson when you pull crap like this within the confines the law allows. If you're going into a courtroom with nearly unlimited liability you really need to comprehend that your behavior has ramifications. In addition this punishment is not just for his past acts but the fact…

In a civil case it is not a jury's duty to teach anyone a lesson, it is their duty to assess and award restitution for noncriminal wrongdoing, nothing more.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#765

Post by permo-w »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #761
permo-w wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

odds are Alex Jones will move somewhere with a poor judicial relationship with the US and add this to his narrative

Don't give him ideas. But if he does, making money from this trash (or at least from a US audience for it) may be harder.

also presumably he'd have to leave behind a significant portion of his assets

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#766

Post by ncallaway »

betwixthewires wrote: post #764
pixl97 wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule number one is "Do not be a fuckhead in court". Rule number two is "Don't be a fuckhead about children" It is the juries duty to teach you a lesson when you pull crap like this within the confines the law allows. If you're going into a courtroom with nearly unlimited liability you really need to comprehend that your behavior has ramifications. In addition this punishment is not just for his past acts but the fact…

In a civil case it is not a jury's duty to teach anyone a lesson, it is their duty to assess and award restitution for noncriminal wrongdoing, nothing more.

That's...not entirely accurate.

For the actual damages section, I agree, a juries responsible is to determine the, well, actual economic harm that's befallen a person.

However, juries are also tasked with awarding punitive damages, and for this the juries responsibility is literally to determine the appropriate amount to teach someone a lesson. That's literally what punitive damages are intended for.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#767

Post by koshergweilo »

akerl_ wrote: post #138
koshergweilo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First amendment has limitations. Saying fire in a movie theater, for example. Multiple courts in a number of separate jurisdictions have ruled that the first amendment does not protect Jones in these cases

Just so we’re on the same page, “fire in a crowded theater” was coined as part of the Supreme Court’s upholding of a conviction for protesting the draft during WW1. The decision is no longer really relevant, having been replaced in a later case with a revised test that requires that the speech in question is intended to, and likely to cause, imminent lawless action. Which is for the best, because the Schenck decision…

Oh I agree, it doesn't apply to this particular case but it is the textbook definition of a reasonable limit on free speech. The poster I was replying to seemed to be under the impression that the first amendment protected all forms of speech. As you said, the courts have carved out many exceptions to the first amendment.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#768

Post by int_19h »

budder wrote: post #631
int_19h wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tweet " I believe that ..." all you like and not get sued.

Is that really enough to avoid being sued for defamation?

It's a bit more complicated than that, but fundamentally, defamation involves a "false statement of fact". Weasel wording that would be understood by a "reasonable person" to imply facts can be defamatory even if the verbiage says "opinion", so it may require more careful language to stay on the safe side, but I can't think of any opinion that couldn't fundamentally be expressed at all.

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#769

Post by mejari »

hunterb123 wrote: post #733
schwartzworld wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone acquitted may still be guilty? 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 prosecuti…

> While it may work differently in practice at times, that idea IS actually a great one. Exactly. That's my point. Don't assume everyone who was acquitted is guilty because of the few exceptions of injustice such as OJ.

>Don't assume everyone who was acquitted is guilty because of the few exceptions of injustice such as OJ.

No one was. Even you said

>So since OJ got off you assume everyone acquitted may still be guilty?

which is not the same thing.

No one is pronounced innocent in the US justice system, so by definition yes, anyone who is found not guilty "may still be guilty".

Re: Alex Jones told to pay $965M damages to Sandy Hook victims' families

#770

Post by mejari »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #676
MrJohz wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 arg…

>While plausible, it hasn't really been proven that he ever even looked at his google Analytics

This is not true. Evidence was shown in the trials that InfoWars looked at and responded to traffic analytics.

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