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3. Deadline Legal Blog-Supreme Court won't review Alex Jones' appeal on $1.4 billion judgment in Sandy Hook case
Tue Oct 14, 2025, 10:50 AM
Tuesday

The Infowars host had warned of a “financial death penalty by fiat imposed on a media defendant whose broadcasts reach millions.”

Fabulous news!

Supreme Court won’t review Alex Jones’ appeal on .4 billion judgment in Sandy Hook case www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...

Stephen Trumbull (@smtrumbull.bsky.social) 2025-10-14T14:00:29.034Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/supreme-court-alex-jones-appeal-libel-infowars-rcna236691

The Supreme Court has declined to review Alex Jones’ appeal, which sought to upend the $1.4 billion judgment that the Infowars host called “the largest in American libel history.” He was sued by victims’ relatives over his lies about the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The denial came Tuesday in an order list containing actions in pending appeals. It takes four justices to grant review, and most petitions are denied.

In his failed petition, Jones said the judgment “can never be paid” and that the litigation outcome is a “financial death penalty by fiat.” He said he couldn’t fairly defend himself, complaining that the Connecticut legal process lacked “meaningful appellate review” and featured “a punitive administrative Death Penalty Sanction for small discovery errors to impose liability, bypass burdens of proof, and award punitive damages.”

Jones argues that his First Amendment rights were given short shrift and that his statements were taken out of context. He said he had expressed “opinions of media excesses” when he used terms such as “hoax” and “staged,” which he said were “generally directed at the media circus, while often in the same broadcasts acknowledging that murders had in fact occurred.”

The plaintiffs in the case waived their right to file a brief opposing Jones’ petition at the high court, and the court didn’t request a response before denying his petition, suggesting no justices thought it worthy of further consideration.

This made me smile

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