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I've found it impossible to find thorough, unbiased reading material about the Alex Jones/Sandy Hook trial. My take is "what he did shouldn't be illegal, but if it is, wouldn't removing the content from the internet and issuing a retraction be enough?" I'd appreciate some reading material if anyone has any.
I think what he did should be perfectly legal on grounds of freedom of the press. But that it most probably is a tort in that specific situation and that he should at best pay a reasonable sum to the families (single digit million bucks or something) to make them whole for the trouble he caused them.
The current situation in an embarrassment to the American Justice System and a display of both pointless cruelty, incredibly silly sentencing, denial of due process and more generally political theater. All things that it should strive to stay as far away from as possible.
Your best bet to get some actual legal information on the situation is unfortunately to watch very long and boring video commentary of the trial. But it's almost all coming from people sympathetic to Jones. You'll have a heap of trouble finding someone who has shreds of a claim of impartiality on a man who is the very essence of polarizing.
Please explain how Jones’ due process was denied.
both judges denied jones's ability to defend himself at trial, barred him from making various substantive arguments pretrial, denied jones's ability to present a broad swath of relevant evidence, among many others
and a long list of other civil, legal, and constitutional rights
They did not. Jones declined to offer a defense, and then when a jury was empaneled only to address the amount of damages, he decided at that point he would bother. Which isn’t how civil suits work.
He ducked depositions and refused to hand over material requested by the court. In the real world, which is admittedly not where Jones mentally resides, pulling shit like that will lead to less than maximally generous pretrial rulings. But this does not equate to a denial of due process.
He did not "decline to offer a defense" during the part of the trial where whether he was liable or not was being determined. He was found liable by default by the judge as a sanction. He then declined to make an argument in the damages phase because the only way he could do so would be by admitting liability; if he'd made arguments that he was not liable he would be found in contempt.
Yeah, none of that is a denial of due process. Judges can rule in default if civil defendants fail to meet their obligations.
Why yes, judges can deny due process to people using their powers and it happened, that's the whole argument.
Due process doesn't mean that all the rules were followed and you can go fuck yourself otherwise the Soviet Union had due process for political prisoners. It means that you have a reasonable expectation of being able to defend yourself and present your case. That the game isn't rigged against you from the start.
"We already know you're guilty, this is just a sentencing hearing" isn't due process.
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that's exactly what "due process" means
a person claiming the judges erred in denying Jones the ability to defend himself on the merits is arguing about "due process"
judges can and do deny people "due process"
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