Summary
The Connecticut Appellate Court upheld a $965 million verdict against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for spreading false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, leading to threats and harassment of victims’ families and an FBI agent.
While affirming the historic compensatory damages, the court vacated $150 million in punitive damages tied to Connecticut’s Unfair Trade Practices Act, reducing Jones’s total liability to $1.2 billion, including a prior Texas ruling.
Jones plans to appeal, but Sandy Hook families view the decision as a significant step toward justice.
It’s still regressive AF, in the sense that only the owner class / moneyed interests can afford to do it (especially while avoiding serving their punishment in the interim). Meanwhile, the working class rots in prison waiting for years for their overworked public defender to half-ass their case.
That isn’t a critique of the justice system, that’s a critique of capitalism.
The “justice” system favors the rich because under-regulated capitalism has made it inevitable.
The former is in large part a tool to enforce the latter, so it’s disingenuous to pretend that they’re separate.
But the justice system operates hand in hand with capitalism. If capitalism takes advantage of it, the justice system needs to adjust or it takes the blame too.
The implementation is regressive. The concept itself is good.
That’s called capitalism