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Can we have a thread about Alex Jones? Apparently the "victims" of his actions are pushing for something like a trillion dollar award.
I get it, he spoke some really shitty things about some people that just lost their children in a horrendous event. I can't imagine what they're going through. But I can't get past this mental block of "Yeah he said some shitty things, but he never directed his followers to do harassment, and the parents essentially just got cyber bullied, like just walk away from the screen, seriously. There were like two incidents of real life harassment, which have been prosecuted, and also were inflicted upon the parents who chose to engage with the public media."
Am I missing something here? Why is he being destroyed so thoroughly?
In defense of wrecking Jones:
First, reports are that he was basically ignoring the court system. I think it is entirely justifiable that "ignoring the court system" gets turned into "the court system reminds you, and society in general, that the court system is not to be ignored".
Second, people are looking at the fine and saying that it seems excessive in absolute numbers. But I think there's a lot of value in fines that are relative to someone's net worth. And I think "promoting a harassment campaign against people who had their children murdered, all for the sake of selling merchandise" is reasonably responded to with "a fine of at least 100% of your net worth". Which is about what this is.
If we fine people absolute numbers, we're giving rich people effective permission to do whatever they want while ruining poor people's lives for small transgressions; if the goal is to make them stop, then relative numbers are what you've gotta do.
There have been reports that the court system didn’t follow normal standards on a lot of discovery with him which then justifies him ignoring the court system. If the court is going to cheat you anyway then you lose nothing by ignoring them.
In this circumstance, I'd recommend an appeal rather than a boycott.
The appeals courts just dismissed his case. The fix was in at all levels. I'm sure the judges thought this was for the good reason of sparing the Sandy Hook families the trauma of a trial involving Jones.
What do you mean the appeals court dismissed his case? Even if the court were going for some kind of speed record there's no way they could have rendered judgment already. And lower appeals courts can't "dismiss" appeals; you're entitled to one appeal as of right that must be heard on the merits. That being said, since the trial court ruling was a default judgment his avenues of appeal are limited.
Theoretically you're entitled to have your case heard on the merits in trial court; that was denied Jones. I believe the Connecticut Supreme Court turned down his motion to vacate the default before the final judgement was rendered. He's really got no avenue of appeal; the appeals courts can't consider the merits of the case because he wasn't allowed to make it so there's nothing to examine on appeal.
It wasn't denied Jones; he forfeited that right by refusing to participate in the case against him. That's what happens—you can't get out of a lawsuit by simply ignoring it. He had 2 years to comply with discovery requests and refused to do so despite repeated orders from the court. What was the judge supposed to do here? How many bites at the apple does the guy deserve? You can make the argument that the discovery requests were inappropriate, and though I haven't heard any specifics about that, it's beside the point. Even assuming the requests were inappropriate, it's not up to the parties to decide which orders they are going to comply with. If that were the case, you'd just be giving parties carte blanch to ignore any adverse rulings without consequence.
As for the exact procedural issues you bring up: Asking the court to vacate a judgment is not the same as appeal. For the court to vacate the default judgment, Jones would have to convince them that the entering of such judgment was inappropriate. The court obviously disagreed, and proceeded to a trial on damages. If Jones were to appeal the case, he'd be making the same arguments to the appeals court that he was to the trial court—that default judgment was inappropriate. Asking the trial court to vacate the judgment was a step for preserving the issue for appeal since appellate courts are loathe to consider matters that weren't before the trial court. As a practical matter, though, it's pretty meaningless, since the losing party will ask the trial judge to vacate the judgment in every case, and the trial judge will almost always say no.
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