Can someone please cliff note the Alex Jones case?
I understand that he said sandy hook was a hoax, and this allegedly caused the families pain and suffering. But how exactly did it cause those things? And I've heard stuff about his comments causing threats to the families?
What was the supposed money shot that was used to convict him?
There was no jury that decided his guilt. A judge did that. No trial, no evidence presented.
The jury in a separate trial decided only "damages," after the judge essentially disallowed Jones from saying anything in his defense, at the threat of imprisonment for a contempt of court charge.
The whole thing was a farce. Viva Frei and Robert Barnes have some good discussion of how it all played out.
I don't think a default final judgement is appealable; there's nothing for the appeals courts to examine. He's already lost a motion to set aside the default.
I wouldn't say it's a first ammendment issue, more of he was denied the right to face his accusers. They found anything to default judgement him on so that he could not defend himself in court.
The single strongest anti-Jones argument I can give you is that one of his co-hosts basically doxed one of the family members live on air, because said family member was having some sort of row with the show, because Alex for a while had been claiming that some members of the families never lost kids at all. This resulted in some crazy fan going to their house and harassing them, and then getting a bunch of death threats, causing them to sell the home and move.
In that case of one comment against one family member, there are genuinely arguable damages. But it wasn't by Jones himself, it was by his co-host. The question there would be whether he approved of it, but I don't know that, and Jones didn't say that he did, but Jones didn't stop it either.
There is another time when Alex argued that the way that one of the fathers behaved at a funeral for his kid suggested he didn't lose the kid (because he laughed and cried within a few moments of each other). You might be able to argue some kind of emotional distress from that. Considering that even though I never watched Info Wars, even I had heard people claiming that on Reddit, it seems like that could be legitimate claim of a damaged reputation.
And that's it. That's literally all I've got for you. There was no trial, so I can't go into actual details on any specific claim. You'll notice I didn't mention and defamed FBI agents either.
JP Morgan Chase monopolized and manipulated the entire world financial market in Gold and Silver for 8 years, engaged in criminal misconduct and monopolistic practices, probably robbing people of billions of dollars. They were given a fine $40 million less than what Jones has received from just the damages in this verdict. The jury may still come back with compensatory damages. He may be fined even more than Pfizer was for it's criminal misconduct ($2.5 billion) when all is said and done.
Can someone please cliff note the Alex Jones case?
I understand that he said sandy hook was a hoax, and this allegedly caused the families pain and suffering. But how exactly did it cause those things? And I've heard stuff about his comments causing threats to the families?
What was the supposed money shot that was used to convict him?
There was no money shot. The judge claimed he didn't provide evidence he says he provided. The jury awarded a default judgement.
There was no jury that decided his guilt. A judge did that. No trial, no evidence presented.
The jury in a separate trial decided only "damages," after the judge essentially disallowed Jones from saying anything in his defense, at the threat of imprisonment for a contempt of court charge.
The whole thing was a farce. Viva Frei and Robert Barnes have some good discussion of how it all played out.
Yep. The more you look into it the more obvious it is that he got railroaded.
The GOOD news is that his appeal will be so, so easy due to the insanely high damages and there is a case to get that judge removed.
Will that actually happen? Depends on the blowback.
I don't think a default final judgement is appealable; there's nothing for the appeals courts to examine. He's already lost a motion to set aside the default.
Kind of hard to provide evidence when you do not even show up to the trial.
https://archive.ph/4JYHX
If that's the case, then it sounds like it doesn't have anything to do with the first amendment unless I'm missing something?
I wouldn't say it's a first ammendment issue, more of he was denied the right to face his accusers. They found anything to default judgement him on so that he could not defend himself in court.
It's both. He was sued for defamation. That's the first-amendment issue. The denial of his right to a trial is a whole other issue.
If expressing the wrong opinion is punishable to the tune of a billion fucking dollars, then you don’t have freedom of speech.
This isn’t complicated. That’s how I know you’re being a deliberately obtuse retard.
According to what the person above me said, he didn't lose because of what he said.
Notice how I said, "If that's the case"
The single strongest anti-Jones argument I can give you is that one of his co-hosts basically doxed one of the family members live on air, because said family member was having some sort of row with the show, because Alex for a while had been claiming that some members of the families never lost kids at all. This resulted in some crazy fan going to their house and harassing them, and then getting a bunch of death threats, causing them to sell the home and move.
In that case of one comment against one family member, there are genuinely arguable damages. But it wasn't by Jones himself, it was by his co-host. The question there would be whether he approved of it, but I don't know that, and Jones didn't say that he did, but Jones didn't stop it either.
There is another time when Alex argued that the way that one of the fathers behaved at a funeral for his kid suggested he didn't lose the kid (because he laughed and cried within a few moments of each other). You might be able to argue some kind of emotional distress from that. Considering that even though I never watched Info Wars, even I had heard people claiming that on Reddit, it seems like that could be legitimate claim of a damaged reputation.
And that's it. That's literally all I've got for you. There was no trial, so I can't go into actual details on any specific claim. You'll notice I didn't mention and defamed FBI agents either.
JP Morgan Chase monopolized and manipulated the entire world financial market in Gold and Silver for 8 years, engaged in criminal misconduct and monopolistic practices, probably robbing people of billions of dollars. They were given a fine $40 million less than what Jones has received from just the damages in this verdict. The jury may still come back with compensatory damages. He may be fined even more than Pfizer was for it's criminal misconduct ($2.5 billion) when all is said and done.
Does that sound fair for my steelman argument?
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.