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> Alex Jones level of remorse has no bearing on the level of damage he caused That's an excellent legal argument, is the kind of thing that could probably win
by shadowgovt 4y ago
> Alex Jones level of remorse has no bearing on the level of damage he caused
That's an excellent legal argument, is the kind of thing that could probably win before a judge... And has no bearing on what a jury finds. In general, the reasoning of a jury is private to the jury. They can award maximum damages because they think Jones is ugly (all you have to do is get fourteen people to agree that's a fair thing to do to the man; hypothetically, the averaging effect over so many folks is a back-stop. That back-stop backfires if the defendant is particularly loathsome; recall how long it took to seat a jury for Martin Shkreli).
This is why damages are, in so many places, not put before a jury.
- richwater 4y agoI mean sure, but compensatory damages will be appealed and the jury determined amount will be overturned.
- shadowgovt 4y agoProbably. And when it happens, the overturn will be relative to where it is now. The jury's power here is still to send a clear message of what the public thinks, and that will factor into the judge's reasoning... For example, if a judge decides that it doesn't make sense for compensatory damages to be any higher than X, the jury has made clear that they expect 100% of X to be the damages level.