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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29716 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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both judges denied jones's ability to defend himself at trial, barred him from making various substantive arguments pretrial, denied jones's ability to present a broad swath of relevant evidence, among many others

and a long list of other civil, legal, and constitutional rights

Jones refused to mount a defense. He didn’t lose his rights, he declined to exercise them.

Granted, he declined to exercise them because he is crazy and/or deluded. But to claim he is the victim of the court is simply false.

Your claim is Jones wasn't denied the ability to defend himself because despite being denied the ability to contest liability on the merits, and despite his ability to talk about a wide range of relevant evidence during the damages trial, and despite his ability to make many arguments about damages during the damages trial, that Jones didn't lose his rights because he didn't mouth the words which required him to admit liability during his opportunity to make his own case during the damages part of a trial he was defaulted, by law, by the judge?

So other than the ability to contest his liability, his ability to file claims guaranteed by law, e.g., anti-SLAPP motions, his right to present relevant evidence, his evidentiary "rights" for complete evidence, among a long list of legal, civil, and constitutional rights, he "didn't lose his rights?" This is preposterously dishonest.

He did not refuse to offer a defense. He was denied the opportunity to offer a defense as a sanction.

They did not. Jones declined to offer a defense, and then when a jury was empaneled only to address the amount of damages, he decided at that point he would bother. Which isn’t how civil suits work.

He ducked depositions and refused to hand over material requested by the court. In the real world, which is admittedly not where Jones mentally resides, pulling shit like that will lead to less than maximally generous pretrial rulings. But this does not equate to a denial of due process.

They did not. Jones declined to offer a defense

nonsense

He ducked depositions and refused to hand over material requested by the court

How many depositions and how many hours of depositions did Jones sit for in either the Texas case or the Connecticut case? How many did infowars generally?

please tell us specifically what document in either the texas or conn case the court determined Jones had which he destroyed or refused to turn over during any part of either of these lawsuits

pulling shit like that will lead to less than maximally generous pretrial rulings

in every other case like this, the max penalty would have been an inference instruction

NOT a default judgment which is absolutely preposterous

He did not "decline to offer a defense" during the part of the trial where whether he was liable or not was being determined. He was found liable by default by the judge as a sanction. He then declined to make an argument in the damages phase because the only way he could do so would be by admitting liability; if he'd made arguments that he was not liable he would be found in contempt.

Yeah, none of that is a denial of due process. Judges can rule in default if civil defendants fail to meet their obligations.

Why yes, judges can deny due process to people using their powers and it happened, that's the whole argument.

Due process doesn't mean that all the rules were followed and you can go fuck yourself otherwise the Soviet Union had due process for political prisoners. It means that you have a reasonable expectation of being able to defend yourself and present your case. That the game isn't rigged against you from the start.

"We already know you're guilty, this is just a sentencing hearing" isn't due process.

that's exactly what "due process" means

a person claiming the judges erred in denying Jones the ability to defend himself on the merits is arguing about "due process"

Judges can rule in default if civil defendants fail to meet their obligations.

judges can and do deny people "due process"

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