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I’m going to stand by points 1 and 3, actually.
Failing to comply with discovery, shuffling the shell companies, still not paying the victims—those are all “not cooperating.” The more he does those things, the more penalties stack up, above and beyond the initial damages. And all the while he’s making money off the same kind of statements, except directed at the judge, jury, witnesses, anyone who isn’t on his side.
Is it unreasonable to look at these behaviors and think, hmm, that man doesn’t feel a shred of remorse?
As an aside—he was previously threatened with a lawsuit over Pizzagate, leading to a retraction. He settled another suit over the Charlottesville car video, as well as one for criticizing…uh…a yogurt company? These were all filed before any of the Sandy Hook suits, but hey, maybe they just smelled blood in the water.
Point is, he’s offended some people, and now he keeps offending them, even when they’re actively deliberating on his punishment. That’s bad strategy.
Those all seem pretty standard for litigants who are both naive and combative -- it does not 'stack up' to a billion dollars.
He's claiming that the court is made up of crisis actors? I must confess I'm not really a watcher; what kind of things does he say? If it's stuff like 'this is a sham court designed to shut me up instead of seeking a just resolution' -- not only does that seeem like central 1A stuff, he's probably correct?
Either that or he's upset about being targeted for destruction?
He... does not seem like a really strategic guy? Again, I don't see how we get from 'Jones says crazy stuff and is bad at dealing with the legal system' to 'it's totally fair that he's on the hook for a billion dollars'.
Fine. In your expert opinion, how much should he owe for punitive damages?
The law is clear that punitive damages are allowed. The legal system, from judges to jurors, has concluded that he should pay various eye-watering sums. If you think this is so unjust, where would you set the bar?
A year's earnings? Equivalent to whatever he made off the media attention?
I can't come up with an exact figure but complete financial annihilation feels a thousandfold what'd be logical, especially when the tribe advocating for this would generally lean towards leniency in the vast majority of criminal cases.
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