Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could. To say the judges have been lenient with Infowars is an understatement - if you or I were in a civil suit, we would have been defaulted far quicker than Jones was because the judges wouldn't have to worry about a media circus spiraling out from it. Jones did not just throw out a discovery request assuming it was junk mail one time, this was completely intentional and forced the court's hand.
In the Texas trial, I believe Andino Reynal (the counsel at trial) was the 13th attorney they had retained. Yes, 13. At this point, I'm convinced Alex Jones is right up there with Faketoshi as the worst client you could ever have.
> To say the judges have been lenient with Infowars is an understatement
The man was fined more than any other person in the history of humanity for saying words. A billion dollars! pharmaceutical companies that knowingly and willfully killed people have not been fined to such an extent.
And yet Alex was denied the ability to say words in his defence during his trial. "words" like "I'm innocent".
Citizens respect the outcomes of trials not because they follow a some set procedure, but because they think justice happened.
In major political case, in which a a populist talk show host, questioned the official narrative around an event. The state would not allow him to have his say, to raise constitutional issues. While the prosecution spent days talking about things he wasn't allowed to, and opened the trial by telling the jury this is their opportunity to take away Alex's megaphone, to silence him forever.
Alex might need to leave America, like Snowden, and continue his talk show abroad. Will the freest country in the world confiscate his passport to prevent that from happening.
This is a battle for public opinion. You might think you won this, but you haven't really.
>>Citizens respect the outcomes of trials not because they follow a some set procedure, but because they think justice happened.
I'm following this discussion as it's educational, but fwiw, dear God no. I trust trials, inasmuch as I do, because I believe they follow a known, afore-indicated and public procedure, which is the only remotely meaningfilul thing that can try to provide equality of treatment and a sane outcome.
> The state would not allow him to have his say, to raise constitutional issues
I could just quote thwayunion's comments on not being allowed to re-litigate issues that were already decided on in an attempt to derail the damages phase of the trial, but Jones already attempted to argue that what he was doing was protected speech. (In fact, I wasn't even going to respond until I remembered his TCPA motions where he tried just that.)
In De La Rosa v. Alex Jones et al, (D-1-GN-18-001842, 345th District Court of Travis County, Texas), Infowars filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which is implemented in Texas under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA). From [0]:
> "The [TCPA] protects citizens who petition or speak on matters of public concern from retaliatory lawsuits that seek to intimidate or silence them." In re Lipsky, 460 S.W.3d 579, 584 (Tex. 2015) (orig. proceeding). The protection comes in the form of a motion to dismiss a suit that would stifle the defendants' exercise of those rights.
In the anti-SLAPP motion, Jones' attorneys argued the case on its merits - that is, at this point in the trial, they weren't attempting to delay and obstruct by any means necessary, they were actually cooperating with the court.
And yet, despite actually working with the court, their motion was denied, meaning the lawsuit was not dismissed for infringing upon Jones' first amendment rights. And this is extremely notable since the TCPA is one of the most aggressive anti-SLAPP statues in the country - that is, if you lose an anti-SLAPP motion in Texas, your speech is so insanely out of line that basically no court would consider it to be defensible under the first amendment. Again, from [0]:
> CONCLUSION
> Having determined that the parents established a prima facie case for defamation per se that was not subject to the defense raised by Appellants, we affirm the district court's order denying Appellants' motion to dismiss.
His other anti-SLAPP motions also failed.
In summary, Jones already tried the first amendment defense, and lost. Therefore, even if he cooperated and wasn't defaulted on, he would still be barred from presenting a free speech defense during the damages hearing, because the court had already decided that his speech was not protected by the first amendment.
In the Texas trial, I believe Andino Reynal (the counsel at trial) was the 13th attorney they had retained. Yes, 13. At this point, I'm convinced Alex Jones is right up there with Faketoshi as the worst client you could ever have.