The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from far-right media personality Alex Jones regarding a defamation lawsuit brought against him by family members of Sandy Hook Elementary victims and an FBI agent who responded to the shooting.
Jones’ emergency appeal asked the judges to pause a judgment made by a lower court that would have required him to pay more than $1.4 billion over false claims he made about the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut.
Twenty-six people died in the shooting Dec. 14, 2012, at the grade school, including 20 6- and 7-year olds and six adults.
His legal team explained in their emergency filing that “it is an amount that can never be paid, and which based on the trial court’s findings may not be dischargeable in bankruptcy. The result is a financial death penalty by fiat imposed on a media defendant whose broadcasts reach millions.”
He is also facing a separate $49 million defamation lawsuit in Texas after failing to produce documents to family members of Sandy Hook victims, per The Associated Press.
What did Jones say?
Founder and host of the major media platform InfoWars, Jones’ commentary often centered around conspiracy-driven claims — 9/11 was an inside job, government mind-control programs, and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting being a hoax.
During a segment on his show in 2018, Jones said Sandy Hook looked like a “government operation” with “inside job written all over it,” according to Reuters.
The families and the FBI agent then proceeded to file for defamation and emotional distress. In both the Connecticut and Texas lawsuits, the judges found Jones liable for both.
In 2022, Jones and InfoWars’ parent company Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy protection. That caused the company to be auctioned off, and The Onion, a popular satirical news site, initially won the bid.
Jones sued, and a judge blocked the sale.
In his emergency relief, his attorneys said, “Without a stay now, when this case is reviewed and later reversed, InfoWars will have been acquired by its ideological nemesis and destroyed — which Jones believes is the Plaintiffs’ intention. Hence, Jones will clearly experience irreparable injury if a stay is not granted."
The relief also argued that First Amendment rights were being undermined:
“This case presents multiple constitutional questions of first impression involving the use of a punitive administrative Death Penalty Sanction for small discovery errors to impose liability, bypass burdens of proof, and award punitive damages against a media defendant reporting on a matter of public concern in a suit brought by public figures.”
Following the Supreme Court’s denial of Jones’ appeal, Chris Mattei, the attorney for the Sandy Hook families, posted on X that it “properly rejected Jones’s latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused. We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done.”