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The judge threatened to throw Alex in jail for saying he was innocent to the jury. You can't really get more dystopian than that. Imagine if that happened durin

The judge threatened to throw Alex in jail for saying he was innocent to the jury. You can't really get more dystopian than that. Imagine if that happened during your own trial, what would you do? Would you still want to testify. There were a few other things the judge barred him from saying during his testimony, yet the prosecution spent days talking about them. How is that even remotely fair. Ridiculous verdict from a ridiculous show trial. Kangaroos ashamed everywhere.

tptacek 4y ago
The concept you're upset with here is "the rules of evidence". You'll find that in a variety of ways, your freedom of expression is intensely curtailed in a court of law, and you cannot in fact make any argument you'd like. In particular, when you've lost a trial by deliberately defaulting it, you cannot re-raise the issues the trial settled in the damages phase of the trial. You lost, and those issues are now off the table. That's how trials work. People are Big Mad about the fact that Jones wasn't allowed to proclaim his ignorance on the stand. But I'm guessing that if you surveyed those people, fewer than 50% would be aware that he was tried and found liable already, and that the "trial" we're discussing is simply the damages phase of the trial he lost.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  Imagine being accused of murdering someone. You ask for a jury trial. The prosecution asks you to turn over the murder weapon. You plead that you don't have the murder weapon because you are innocent. The judge tells you you have 5 days to turn over all the knives you ever bought. You don't, because you don't know where some of them are. The judge doesn't believe you. The Dystopian Part: The Judge finds you guilty of murder by default, without hearing any evidence of your guilt, and denies you your jury trial, based on the justification that you did not turn over a couple of the knives. Guilt and Punishment: The judge proceeds to hold what amounts to a memorial service, as family member after family member is called up to the stand by the prosecution and they cry in front of the jury over their lost loved one. Your lawyer can't effectively question a crying family member as that makes them seem like a cruel psychopath. Should you take the stand in your defence, the judge threatens you and your lawyer with contempt, and by implication jail, if you go up there and say you're innocent. There's a list of things you're not allowed to talk about because they would imply your innocence. And you were already found guilty! Therefore, saying you're innocent would be perjury. You're only allowed to answer with "yes", "no" or "I don't know" when the prosecution calls you up to the stand. After they berate you for half a day, and your defence lawyer objects to the judge losing control, the judge ends the day by yelling at your lawyer that she won't stand for any nonsense from now on. That she hasn't found a lawyer in contempt in all her career, but she's ready to do it now. The next day is when you're supposed to testify in your defence. You decline to take the stand. Final Instructions: The judge tells the jury it isn't allowed to question or speculate on what basis you where found guilty, just that there are only here to determine your punishment. This is what I'm upset with. This was a political show trial, engineered for a specific verdict.
  - MrJohz 4y ago
    But that would be a criminal trial. This was a civil trial. I'm not even American and I understand the difference! The two processes work completely differently, and comparing them like this doesn't make sense. As to the points you've made: * Default judgment: If you repeatedly do not show up for a trial, then at a certain point the trial needs to still continue. You should not be able to indefinitely put off a case just by refusing to turn up. If this were a criminal case, Jones would be forced to be there, as it's a civil case this is the alternative (as I understand it). * Not having evidence: would work a lot better as a defence if (a) you genuinely contested it, and (b) you didn't send all the evidence that you supposedly couldn't find to the opposition lawyer halfway through the case by accident * The civil case was split into two parts: one to determine fault, and the other to determine damages. As previously mentioned, Jones refused to take part in the trial that would have determined whether he was guilty or not, and therefore a default judgement was given. If he wanted to claim he was innocent, he should have done it then. Again, this is, as I understand it, standard practice for a civil trial. * During a discussion of how much damages you should pay, given you were found guilty, you cannot argue to the jury that you are innocent. This has already been decided - typically with your involvement, assuming you don't just refuse to turn up - so this is just not in question any more.
    - dukeofdoom 4y ago
      I make the comparison because the judge denied Alex a jury trial, based on him not turning over evidence, and not him missing court dates. Some of the evidence he failed to turn over is financial data. The argument made was that the lack of this evidence would prejudice the jury from finding Alex guilty. The judge sided with the prosecution on this so she defaulted him. Specifically the prosecution was making the argument that Alex would see his google analytics go up when he talked about Sandy Hook, and responded to it. While plausible, it hasn't really been proven that he ever even looked at his google Analytics. He blabbers on like a radio talk show host. As a percentage of all he said, Sandy Hood was a very small part of his coverage. This gets even more murky because the financial evidence, such as his earning, is relevant to damages, and not really to guilt. And really, in the end the prosecution was able to estimate his earnings by expert testimony during the damages portion. So was it actually critical. Yet Alex was found guilty based on failing to provide it. And if it was critical, at most it established damages, not guilt. Also, can you imagine how much the prosecution is prejudiced in a criminal trail where the defendant fails to hand over the murder weapon. Yet a jury trail is still allowed proceed. * Default Judgment: I'm not aware of Alex missing any days where he needed to be there pretrial. He sat through 10 days of depositions. Any specific articles you can link where he missed a pre-trial date he had to be there for? * Not having evidence. a) What does genuinely contested really mean? b) That did not happen. The prosecution found an email with an attached screenshot containing a keyword. This was the gotcha moment in his previous trial. Just very dubious. Since attached screenshots are not easily searchable for keywords, and could have been easily missed without any malice by his lawyer. * Jones was never allowed to take part in a "take part in the trial that would have determined whether he was guilty or not". Every interview on the subject, Jones decries not being allowed do process. He wanted to be able to state facts of his case to a jury, his lawyers wanted to make constitutional arguments to the jury, and so on.
thwayunion 4y ago
> what would you do? I would get a decent lawyer who knows the rules of evidence.

tptacek 4y ago

The concept you're upset with here is "the rules of evidence". You'll find that in a variety of ways, your freedom of expression is intensely curtailed in a court of law, and you cannot in fact make any argument you'd like. In particular, when you've lost a trial by deliberately defaulting it, you cannot re-raise the issues the trial settled in the damages phase of the trial. You lost, and those issues are now off the table. That's how trials work. People are Big Mad about the fact that Jones wasn't allowed to proclaim his ignorance on the stand. But I'm guessing that if you surveyed those people, fewer than 50% would be aware that he was tried and found liable already, and that the "trial" we're discussing is simply the damages phase of the trial he lost.

dukeofdoom 4y ago
Imagine being accused of murdering someone. You ask for a jury trial. The prosecution asks you to turn over the murder weapon. You plead that you don't have the murder weapon because you are innocent. The judge tells you you have 5 days to turn over all the knives you ever bought. You don't, because you don't know where some of them are. The judge doesn't believe you. The Dystopian Part: The Judge finds you guilty of murder by default, without hearing any evidence of your guilt, and denies you your jury trial, based on the justification that you did not turn over a couple of the knives. Guilt and Punishment: The judge proceeds to hold what amounts to a memorial service, as family member after family member is called up to the stand by the prosecution and they cry in front of the jury over their lost loved one. Your lawyer can't effectively question a crying family member as that makes them seem like a cruel psychopath. Should you take the stand in your defence, the judge threatens you and your lawyer with contempt, and by implication jail, if you go up there and say you're innocent. There's a list of things you're not allowed to talk about because they would imply your innocence. And you were already found guilty! Therefore, saying you're innocent would be perjury. You're only allowed to answer with "yes", "no" or "I don't know" when the prosecution calls you up to the stand. After they berate you for half a day, and your defence lawyer objects to the judge losing control, the judge ends the day by yelling at your lawyer that she won't stand for any nonsense from now on. That she hasn't found a lawyer in contempt in all her career, but she's ready to do it now. The next day is when you're supposed to testify in your defence. You decline to take the stand. Final Instructions: The judge tells the jury it isn't allowed to question or speculate on what basis you where found guilty, just that there are only here to determine your punishment. This is what I'm upset with. This was a political show trial, engineered for a specific verdict.
- MrJohz 4y ago
  But that would be a criminal trial. This was a civil trial. I'm not even American and I understand the difference! The two processes work completely differently, and comparing them like this doesn't make sense. As to the points you've made: * Default judgment: If you repeatedly do not show up for a trial, then at a certain point the trial needs to still continue. You should not be able to indefinitely put off a case just by refusing to turn up. If this were a criminal case, Jones would be forced to be there, as it's a civil case this is the alternative (as I understand it). * Not having evidence: would work a lot better as a defence if (a) you genuinely contested it, and (b) you didn't send all the evidence that you supposedly couldn't find to the opposition lawyer halfway through the case by accident * The civil case was split into two parts: one to determine fault, and the other to determine damages. As previously mentioned, Jones refused to take part in the trial that would have determined whether he was guilty or not, and therefore a default judgement was given. If he wanted to claim he was innocent, he should have done it then. Again, this is, as I understand it, standard practice for a civil trial. * During a discussion of how much damages you should pay, given you were found guilty, you cannot argue to the jury that you are innocent. This has already been decided - typically with your involvement, assuming you don't just refuse to turn up - so this is just not in question any more.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    I make the comparison because the judge denied Alex a jury trial, based on him not turning over evidence, and not him missing court dates. Some of the evidence he failed to turn over is financial data. The argument made was that the lack of this evidence would prejudice the jury from finding Alex guilty. The judge sided with the prosecution on this so she defaulted him. Specifically the prosecution was making the argument that Alex would see his google analytics go up when he talked about Sandy Hook, and responded to it. While plausible, it hasn't really been proven that he ever even looked at his google Analytics. He blabbers on like a radio talk show host. As a percentage of all he said, Sandy Hood was a very small part of his coverage. This gets even more murky because the financial evidence, such as his earning, is relevant to damages, and not really to guilt. And really, in the end the prosecution was able to estimate his earnings by expert testimony during the damages portion. So was it actually critical. Yet Alex was found guilty based on failing to provide it. And if it was critical, at most it established damages, not guilt. Also, can you imagine how much the prosecution is prejudiced in a criminal trail where the defendant fails to hand over the murder weapon. Yet a jury trail is still allowed proceed. * Default Judgment: I'm not aware of Alex missing any days where he needed to be there pretrial. He sat through 10 days of depositions. Any specific articles you can link where he missed a pre-trial date he had to be there for? * Not having evidence. a) What does genuinely contested really mean? b) That did not happen. The prosecution found an email with an attached screenshot containing a keyword. This was the gotcha moment in his previous trial. Just very dubious. Since attached screenshots are not easily searchable for keywords, and could have been easily missed without any malice by his lawyer. * Jones was never allowed to take part in a "take part in the trial that would have determined whether he was guilty or not". Every interview on the subject, Jones decries not being allowed do process. He wanted to be able to state facts of his case to a jury, his lawyers wanted to make constitutional arguments to the jury, and so on.

thwayunion 4y ago

> what would you do? I would get a decent lawyer who knows the rules of evidence.