Alex Jones Defamation Trial

September 13, 2022Media Mention
Court TV

Doug Mirell, litigation partner and First Amendment expert, discussed the Alex Jones defamation trials with Vinny Politan of Closing Arguments on Court TV.  Mirell addressed some of the differences between the recently concluded case in Texas and the one now taking place in Connecticut—including the greater number of victims and plaintiff family members.  He also noted how the Jones defamation trials, which involve multiple false claims made over many years, compare to the libel lawsuit recently won by Johnny Depp over a single opinion piece published by the Washington Post.

Excerpt:

"The injury and loss [these family members] have suffered is so unimaginable.  As a parent of three children, watching that mother and father [who testified at Jones’ Texas] trial is something you cannot but empathize with.  Although, seemingly, Alex Jones did not.  What the jury in the Texas case did was monetize this grief.  The jury said, "Look, these two parents have suffered enormously and we are going to award them just short of $50 million."  That case involved a single child victim and his two parents, but here there are 13 family members representing eight victims, and the trial is taking place in their hometown.  I think the message that needs to be sent, and will be sent by this jury, is: ‘You deserve better. Your children and their memory deserve better.’”

"These cases [against Jones] are rather unusual.  In [the Johnny Depp] case, you had a single OpEd published by the Washington Post.  And, though we know that things published on the internet tend to live forever, here Alex Jones kept repeating his outrageous lies.  Indeed, as late as September 2014—which is one year and nine months after the Sandy Hook massacre—Infowars published a a phony headline that read: "FBI Says No One Killed At Sandy Hook."  Jones kept this going, and kept defaming people over and over again.  So, in that respect, these cases are much more egregious than the usual defamation action."

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