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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32864 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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Alex Jones just lost a lawsuit for defamation for claiming that Sandy Hook was a hoax and the reward was $965bil (after a previous $50mil verdict so its over a billion) for defamation and emotional damages. Jones is a kook, and his claim was both false, and outrageous; but I'm not 100 percent sure he even should have lost. Esp for the emotional damage part. I don't think people should be entitled to damages because they feel hurt by what you say. As far as the defamation part if he claimed particular people created the hoax then I can understand a loss of a defamation lawsuit, but if its just a general comment along the lines of "I think it's a hoax" I don't think he should face any legal penalty for it. And a billion dollars for spouting off some nonsense seems ridiculous to me.

I suspect that he will appeal (I understand he tried to appeal the previous case all the way up to the Supreme Court, who refused to accept the case), and that the case won't be overturned on appeal, but perhaps the damages will be reduced.

There was also some talk about harassment and death threats against people suing Jones. If it can be proven that Jones was behind it I suppose that could be ground for a lawsuit (and perhaps even criminal charges depending on the details), but that would be a separate issue than defamation or emotional distress over the original comment.

Large damages are often reduced, and perhaps what Jones said should be protected speech, or perhaps emotional damages should never be recoverable. But if you are going to make the claim, you probably should look into what actually happened, because you seem to be very much understating both what Jones did and the emotional suffering experienced by the plaintiffs, both of which were way beyond the bar normally needed to recover for emotional damages for defamation in the US.

I think it should be covered under the same parody laws that protected Hustler when they got sued after claiming Falwell lost his virginity with his mom.

Jones is a clown no one should be taking him seriously. Just like Stern and Opie and Anthony and all the other shock jocks who do wild and stupid stuff designed to generate an emotional response for entertainment.

Did he even make that defense in court? If not, he has only himself to blame. But I doubt it would fly anyway; I've seen no indication that he doesn't believe all the twisted clown-car shit that he says.

He wasn't allowed to present any defense in court, since a default judgement was entered against him.

That's not true.

Jones spent years, starting from May 2018, stalling on discovery. Eventually, the judge called it quits and entered that default judgment, at which point they moved on to a jury trial for damages.

He decided not to present any defense, apparently because guilt in the default judgment meant the judge denied his usual strategy of shouting "I'M INNOCENT" over and over.

Jones’ own lawyers had earlier indicated they would have him testify again Wednesday to bolster his arguments that the damages awarded to the plaintiffs should be minimal.

But Jones said he would likely be held in contempt if he took the stand again, because the judge would not allow him to say he is “innocent.”

Jones’ attorney, Norm Pattis, told the judge that his client was boycotting the proceedings because he feels he’s being asked to either commit perjury, be held in contempt of court or invoke his rights not to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment.

He had plenty of opportunities to submit an actual defense. Doing so would have involved cooperating with the court, though, and he wasn't willing to go that far.

Jones is telling the literal truth there. He could not defend himself in the damages phase because he would not be allowed to assert the defense that he did not commit defamation, because that had already been decided (without a trial) by the court's default judgement.

And it conveniently elides all the opportunities he did have to defend himself, but instead chose to shoot himself in the foot.

It’s like a criminal killed while evading the police. Not how things are supposed to go, but he did it to himself.

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