Aug 5 (Reuters) - U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre $45.2 million in punitive damages - on top of $4.1 million in compensatory damages already awarded - for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax, a Texas jury decided on Friday.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, separated parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, testified that followers of Jones harassed them and sent them death threats for years in the false belief that they were lying about their son's death in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting that killed 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

The 12-person jury on Thursday decided on the compensatory damages following a two-week trial in the defamation lawsuit presided over by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in state court in the Texas capital of Austin, where Jones' radio show and webcast Infowars are based.

The parents had sought $145.9 million in punitive damages and $150 million in compensatory damages. Compensatory damages are awarded to cover a plaintiff's suffering and losses. Punitive damages are awarded to punish a defendant's actions.

Jones, who has been a prominent figure in American right-wing circles and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, had called the Sandy Hook massacre a hoax by the U.S. government staged using crisis actors to serve as a pretext for taking away Americans' guns.

"We ask that you send a very, very simple message, and that is: stop Alex Jones. Stop the monetization of misinformation and lies," Wesley Todd Ball, a lawyer for the parents, told jurors earlier on Friday before they began deliberations on punitive damages.

The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle to carry out the massacre. It ended when Lanza killed himself with the approaching sound of police sirens.

An attorney for Jones, Federico Andino Reynal, asked jurors to return a verdict of $270,000 based on the number of hours Infowars devoted to Sandy Hook coverage.

Forensic economist Bernard Pettingill testified on Friday on behalf of Lewis' parents that Jones "promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation" and "made a lot of money." Jones and Infowars are worth between $135 million and $270 million combined, Pettingill said.

Jones sought to distance himself from the conspiracy theories during his testimony, apologizing to the parents and acknowledging that Sandy Hook was "100% real."

Jones' company, Free Speech Systems LLC, declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals. The bankruptcy declaration paused a similar defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut where, as in Texas, he has already been found liable.

During closing arguments on Wednesday, Kyle Farrar, a lawyer for the parents, urged the jury to end what he called their nightmare and hold Jones accountable for profiting off their son's death. Reynal acknowledged during his closing argument that Jones and Infowars reported "irresponsibly" on Sandy Hook but said his client was not responsible for the harassment.

The plaintiffs also have accused Jones of approaching the trial in bad faith, citing broadcasts in which he said the proceedings were rigged against him and that the jury pool was full of people who "don't know what planet they're on."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44969973)

If you are trying to argue that Jones never should have been found liable in the first place, then it's his own fucking fault for not responding to discovery requests. If you are trying to argue that the plaintiffs' attorneys didn't make a convincing argument for that amount of damages, I didn't watch the trial nor do I know the Texas law regarding awarding damages in these types of cases, so I can't comment on that. All I know is that (based on my possibly incorrect understanding) he cannot discharge these punitive damages in Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44971737)

i, a notable fringe conspiracy theorist, think sandy hook was an inside job, although this is based on circumstance and is just my opinion because i don't have first hand knowledge of what happened -> defamation so extreme that punitive damages are warranted

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970143)

also i don't think it's fair to say "with reckless disregard as to the truth". a conspiracy theory is an inherently unknowable thing. and punishing people for spreading "dangerous misinformation with a reckless disregard for the truth" is not a path i want to go down. how many people were canceled in the past few years for saying things that turned out to be true?

i don't want the government, even through the courts in civil suits, to have the power to regulate speech based on truthfulness except in very narrow circumstances like actual defamation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970260)

also you need to show damages. if that speech actually damaged that person and they suffered consequences, i would think that there would need to be some plausibility (even incredibly attenuated plausibility like sandy hook conspiracies) to your accusations.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970303)

but how is that any different than 9/11 conspiracy theorists who think all the people on the planes were in on it and that their families are too? should those people be able to successfully sue for defamation too?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970293)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970146)

jones profoundly sucks for this but political speech should have the highest protection. that includes fringe conspiracies like frogs being gay or sandy hook being an inside job. if jones said knew for a fact that it was an inside job (i.e. not an opinion) or if he encouraged his listeners to harass the families i would think differently.

people who call buzz aldrin a liar because they believe in flat earth shouldn't face consequences for their speech.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970163)

it's not that big of a deal i guess because it's an isolated case and it's not like people are going to start suing each other from wrongthink now. i just don't like the sentiment that "alex jones sucks he deserves it."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970181)

"inspiring someone" to do something isn't enough. should political commentators be on the hook when someone who is "inspired" by them commits an act of violence? if i said "joe biden is ruining this country and we'd be better off of he's dead", and you went out and killed him, should i face consequences?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970221)

You getting btfo in https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167165&mc=46&forum_id=2 not enough?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970497)

Having said that, my understanding is the court never ruled on the merits of his case. Jones lost in a default judgment because he failed to produce required documents during discovery. This week's trial was only to determine damages. So I'm pretty okay with the outcome in this particular case.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44971551)

- RSF, probably

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970168)

>>>

[[QUOTE FROM CASE:

This case is far clearer than Saenz. The record leaves no doubt that Bentley suffered mental anguish as a result of Bunton's and Gates's statements. Bentley testified that the ordeal had cost him time, deprived him of sleep, caused him embarrassment in the community in which he had spent almost all of his life, disrupted his family, and distressed his children at school. The experience, he said, was the worst of his life. Friends testified that he had been depressed, that his honor and integrity had been impugned, that his family had suffered, too, adding to his own distress, and that he would never be the same. Much of Bentley's anxiety was caused by Bunton's relentlessness in accusing him of corruption. But all of this is no evidence that Bentley suffered mental anguish damages in the amount of $ 7 million, more than forty times the amount awarded him for damage to his reputation. The amount is not merely excessive and unreasonable; it is far beyond any figure the evidence can support.

The other amounts of actual damages found by the jury are well within a range that the evidence supports. We do not consider whether the awards were unreasonable; that issue was for the lower courts. We conclude only that no evidence permitted the jury to make the findings it did.

Bentley v. Bunton, 94 S.W.3d 561, 607 (Tex. 2002).

In the Jones case, of course, the _reputational harm_ is zero. The allowable amount of compensatory damage would thus be even lower than in Bentley._

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167151&forum_id=2#44968082)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970174)

(1) Pain & suffering damages for defamation have to be proportional to quantifiable reputational harm -- here, the provable reputational harm is zero, so the $4.1m should come way down.

(2) Punitives, of course, have to be in proportion to compensatory damages (_Gore_ etc. and also under Tx. precedents) -- and a party can challenge punis afresh after a remittitur of compensatory damages.

There is very strong Texas Supreme Court precedent that is directly on point here and which indicates the damages award is grossly excessive.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970216)

I hope he loses everything. he's a lard of shit and deserves to be in jail.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970254)

thug in black dress: "any objections?"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44971029)

i think saying all black people are subhuman idiots that should be disenfranchised shitty. and this would necessarily mean i'm saying some random black dude is a subhuman idiot. even though i find that speech despicable i don't think someone that says that should be defamation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970452)

are you suggesting that expressing negative opinions about black people is political speech that is protected under your wacky new defamation rule?

so if i understand you right, "john doe tortured a kitten" is potentially defamatory, but "john doe tortured a kitten, which isn't surprising, given that he's black" is protected political speech? lmao, come on dude

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970707)

Is a more accurate representation of what he’s saying

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970800)

"so if i understand you right, "john doe tortured a kitten" is potentially defamatory, but "john doe tortured a kitten, which isn't surprising, given that he's black" is protected political speech? lmao, come on dude"

no, your example is an individual action (torturing a kitten). whereas mine is a class based statement (all X people are Y).

jones said sandy hook with a hoax and consequently the parents were in on it. that is a class based statement, same as in my example with black people.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970831)

Furthermore this Court has been on a tear, handing out yuge lopsided wins to conservatives in establishment clause cases. There was a recent one that was 9-0. Libs themselves built the foundation for all of this when they defended WWI protesters and neo-nazis. The biggest enemy of the 1st amendment on the court right now is probably Roberts, but he is still generally lax about it. OTOH he HATES seeing courts clogged up with junk litigation, especially when it's political. Don't tell libs though. Let them think the 1st amendment runs on autopilot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970448)

tbf jones' sandy hook theories are batshit, but this verdict seems like it could be extended to keep people in line to never deviate from what cnn tells you to believe

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970407)

It is so ORDERED.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970214)

so schumer can be sued for $45m+ by kavanaugh

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970610)

https://i.imgur.com/ynrREDk.jpg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5167799&forum_id=2#44970370)