HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - The Connecticut Supreme Court, ruling for the first time on whether the First Amendment protects out-of-court statements, upheld a judge’s sanctions against radio personality Alex Jones over abusive statements he made against opponents in litigation over the Sandy Hook massacre.
The plaintiffs, including a first responder and family members of people who were killed in the 2012 shooting, sued Jones over his claims the massacre was a hoax and they were lying about the deaths of their children.
Jones moved to dismiss the case under Connecticut’s anti-SLAPP law, which defendants can use to dismiss lawsuits designed to squelch public participation in important events. The plaintiffs asked the court for discovery, which Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis granted in December 2018, setting a February deadline.
Jones missed that deadline and the judge granted an extension to March 20, which Jones also missed. The plaintiffs moved for sanctions and the judge conducted a hearing on April 10. The plaintiffs requested more discovery in May, including a search of Jones’ cellphone and marketing data to try to disprove his claim listeners didn’t pay much attention to his Sandy Hook hoax broadcasts.
One June 14, 2019, Jones launched into a tirade on the radio with his lawyer, Norman Pattis, accusing opponents including plaintiff attorney Chris Mattei of planting child porn in e-mails he turned over to the court. Plaintiff lawyers notified the FBI when they found pornographic images among the e-mails they said Jones gave them.
“I’m here to tell the little pimps, the Senator Murphys and the prosecutor, the Obama-appointed prosecutor [who’s] doing all this, bitch, I don’t need to talk about poor dead kids to have listeners,” Jones said on the radio. “You’re trying to set me up with child porn. I’m going to get your ass.”
The trial judge ordered sanctions against Jones, including revoking his chance to dismiss the case. Jones appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The high court sided with the trial judge, citing her authority to sanction attorneys and their clients for “harassing litigation conduct.”
“A long line of decisions makes clear that this inherent authority to sanction a party extends to sanctioning participants to litigation for engaging in threatening and harassing behavior,” the Supreme Court ruled, in an opinion by Justice Richard Robinson.
The court rejected Jones’ argument his First Amendment right to free speech had been infringed, saying his constitutional protections “are not absolute.” Noting this was the first time Connecticut’s highest court had considered the First Amendment implications of sanctions over extrajudicial speech, the Supreme Court said “the trial court was not just considering one violation of a court deadline but several, and, therefore, the defendants’ noncompliance warranted an appropriate sanction by that court.”
“We conclude that the defendants received adequate notice so as to be apprised of the possibility of sanctions entering as a result of their conduct,” the court concluded.