Alex Jones must pay $1.1 billion of Sandy Hook damages despite bankruptcy - court

This is part of due process in doing something about it. Unfortunately it's a lot faster to commit crimes and get "creative" with moving money in not-quite-crimes-but-still-bullshit than it is to weigh up their legality and enforce appropriate penalties.

When a legal system relies heavily on precedent as guidance and technicalities can destroy a decision, and fixing that might take decades and destroy lives, you have to make sure it's good. Especially when this many people are watching.

Unfortunately you're very right that the slow speeds to ensure precision are easily and visibly exploited by scumlickers like Jones.

I can see why you would think this, but this is a very unusual case. Particularly so given the decision in this article.

You're dead right in that rich people don't go broke like the rest of us - because they have accountants and lawyers set up complex business structures so if something falls over they can just walk away (or drive away in their nice car to their nice house).

This article is pretty much saying that all that usual dance isn't going to work in this case - he still has to pay $1.1b.

Also, there's no law that prevents him from going on making money. That may not feel "right" or just but that dynamic is the same even for poor people. That said, at 100k per month it would take him 916 years to pay $1.1b soo... he might curtail his luxurious lifestyle, maybe not.

At what point does his bankruptcy and the law diverge, is where what need reevaluated

And yet I believe he still will not pay them a dime... just like if trump loses all his court cases in New York, I really believe he will just refuse to pay and force them to chase him around asking for that money for the rest of his life. Rich people never have to pay fines in the US, its all for show, they always find a way to get around everything.

Good.

You would think he would pay, but look at OJ. Verdict to pay 30 million, and after all these years he only did 130,000.

Getting assets seized and wages garnished is not as easy as you would think.

He made very specific defamatory statements accusing fellow citizens / parents of murdered children of participating in a government conspiracy and those people were able to prove they experienced harm as a consequence of his words.

The plaintiffs also had enough financial backing from (understandably horrified) strangers, and a high enough chance of winning for lawyers to want to represent them. Those factors allowed the plaintiffs to survive the legal system long enough to get a ruling, and the severity of the situation maintained their motivation to keep pushing for it instead of accepting settlement so they could somewhat move on with their lives.

Sometimes, the planets align to create the trifecta of enough energy, money, and evidence to force the justice system into enforcing justice. And I am grateful that can sometimes still happen, as rare as it feels.

Alex Jones and/or his lawyers were too stupid to show up to court and defend themselves, so Jones automatically lost a defamation lawsuit without anyone even proving that Jones lied.

Wow, you might be thinking, that's great for these plaintiffs but surely nobody else would be dumb enough to ignore a defamation lawsuit and thus instantly lose! Well, let me introduce you to a certain Donald J Trump.

On top of everything else, his idiot lawyer accidentally emailed ALL of the discovery evidence that they had claimed didn't exist TO THE PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY. As well as no showing and getting a summary judgement.

There is so much stupid in that trial, you really should go find a legal YouTuber who documented the various levels of idiocy and just watch in amazement.

I'd recommend LegalEagle.

Alex Jones got himself into this position via a trifecta of pure stupid.

First of all, he made claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. This turned public opinion against him severely, because Sandy Hook was a lines-crossed kind of event. Although school shootings are common in America, these tended to happen in colleges and high schools. Sandy Hook was an elementary school, meaning the victims were much younger

Secondly, he called the victims of the aforementioned shooting 'crisis actors', people who are paid to portray victims during emergency drills. These lies by Jones directly led to harassment campaigns against families that were already grieving the loss and extremely violent deaths of their very young children. This also got national attention, and many people pitched into the responding lawsuits raised by the grieving families against Jones's media company.

Thirdly, and perhaps a big reason why the punishment is so severe, Jones treated court hearings and depositions as optional, and skipped a huge amount of them. He didn't even seriously attempt to defend himself in a court of law, and when he did try, his lawyers were either idiots or actively working against him, leaking text messages (EDIT: and emails) that contradicted his own testimony. This led to a lot of default and highly punitive judgements against him.

I hear ya. There are at least some other recent examples. The settlement between Fox News and Dominion. Giuliani is being held to account for libeling the Georgia poll workers. And of course all the Trump cases. But yeah, feels like a drop in the ocean.

Because most public figures leave themselves some wiggle room.

Like "just asking questions" or being careful to qualify their statements.

"Some people are saying that Sandy Hook was a fabrication, and I think they make a pretty convincing case. Are the parents hiding something?" vs "these parents of so called victims are lying, they're actors hired by the government to take away our guns"

Plus I think Alex Jones included some calls to action that led to harassment of these grieving families - he didn't leave himself any way to wiggle out of it. Especially since his exposed communications made it obvious he had no valid basis to assert he believed it , and he showed contempt for the legal process

most of these dorks settle to avoid discovery, alex jones basically thinks rules don't apply to him.

Because Jones is a fat sausage greaseball who was just a useful idiot. His usefulness has run its course.

I heard this picture as the "failure sound" on The Price is Right.

Dude, what the fuck. How morally bankrupt is the US?

Debtors prisons are still illegal and don't exist in the US. It's all explained in the article, but the issue is really that poor people have bad legal representation, local judges aren't all great, and private debt collection is out of control.

In the US, your creditors should generally only be able to garnish your wages up to legal maximums. You can't get prison sentences in civil trials.

Arrests are a last-resort way for a court to force someone to appear. The other jail time is basically contempt of court for failing to comply with court orders. These should probably exist in general, but they are likely misapplied for the above reasons in these cases.

Write to you representatives about the above stuff, not debtors prisons, since they won't know what you are talking about.

How is that constitutional?

EDIT: The U.S. government needs to be overthrown so bad 🤦

A fellow policy wonk, I see.

Hi, Andy in Kansas, I love you

"I love you"

Creative accounting will show him making $0/year until his death

I think it's extremely unlikely he'll earn a billion dollars before he drops dead of an aneurysm in the middle of a far right screed.

It's a thousand million dollars and it's been years since they needed him to funnel unmedicated schizophrenics into political extremism.

Forced selling off of assets?

Yeah, schadenfreude aside, I'm glad that someone doing obviously criminal shit is seeing repercussions. The guy could have worked a normal job, done normal journalism. Instead, he decided that spreading hateful misinformation is a business model. This punishment makes it not a business model.

Well no. It's the step after that, when they actually seize his assets, that's when you finally got to the point where things change.

Only if you like Pb in your supplements. And I mean lead, not peanut butter.

Those are very different things...

nobody in particular is getting a billion dollars from lawsuits against jones, because there are so many people suing him. hopefully his operation is just eroded into obscurity and then we have to hear from the next ten dozen idiots who will take his place. it's the knowledge fight, baby.

Huh? Is that relatable in your head? That explains some things.

I bet it'd be less "stupid shit" if you were on the receiving end of his terror campaign, receiving constant death threats and harassments by his fans, all of whom claiming that your dead child never existed and to stop lying and fake crying.

Nobody’s being made whole from this judgement I suppose. This isn’t the kind of thing where a physical object can be replaced.

What’s your suggestion for how the court should have doled out justice?