Conn. Legal Experts Weigh In on Wis. Jury Verdict Secured for Sandy Hook Parent
"Alex Jones and Norm Pattis [Jones' New Haven-based attorney] should recognize that if this case goes to trial they may well lose," said W. John Thomas, professor of law at Quinnipiac University School of Law. "Every jury is different, especially in different locations, but this jury award is evidence that a group of 12 presumably reasonable people will hold conspiracy theorists responsible for their conduct."
October 17, 2019 at 04:19 PM
4 minute read
A Wisconsin jury's award of $450,000 this week to the father of a Sandy Hook murder victim over conspiracy theories is likely to have an impact in similar cases in Connecticut, where the massacre took place in 2012, legal professionals said.
On Tuesday, the Wisconsin jury handed up a verdict in favor of Leonard Pozner, concluding that authors James Fetzer and Mike Palacek, who wrote the book "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook," defamed him. Pozner's 6-year-old son Noah was killed in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The Connecticut Supreme Court is now mulling a defamation lawsuit that several Sandy Hook families filed against conspiracy theorist and radio talk show host Alex Jones, who said, soon after the shooting, that it never happened. In their lawsuit, attorneys for Bridgeport-based Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder called Jones "the most prolific among those fabricators" who called the shooting a hoax.
"Alex Jones and Norm Pattis [Jones' New Haven-based attorney] should recognize that if this case goes to trial, they may well lose," said W. John Thomas, professor of law at Quinnipiac University School of Law. "Every jury is different, especially in different locations, but this jury award is evidence that a group of 12 presumably reasonable people will hold conspiracy theorists responsible for their conduct."
While Jones has walked back his initial comments and now says the shooting did happen, the lawsuit said "Jones is the chief amplifier for a group that has worked in concert to create and propagate loathsome, false narratives about the Sandy Hook shooting and its victims, and promote their harassment and abuse."
Whether the state's high court will even consider what the Wisconsin jury did this week is questionable, but, legal experts said, that jury might be a telltale sign of what direction juries in this country are moving toward when it comes to conspiracy theorists such as Fetzer and Palacek and even Jones.
"I hope this is some evidence that the American public is getting tired of conspiracy theorists," Thomas told the Connecticut Law Tribune Thursday. "This jury decision is beneficial for the families as they got a decision recognizing that they have been injured by tortious conduct and it should be a beckon for other Sandy Hook families that they may well also receive a remedy."
Said Leslie Levin, associate dean for research and faculty development at the University of Connecticut School of Law, "The families who lost their children had already suffered an unimaginable loss and they suffered again due to the false claims of conspiracy theorists. I am frankly surprised that the jury didn't award more money to Mr. Pozner."
Thomas said the definition of defamation is clear.
"This is a question of defamation and defamation has long been recognized as an exception to the First Amendment," Thomas said. "The Constitution doesn't allow us to defame our neighbors."
Pattis and attorneys for the families had differing reactions to what occurred in Wisconsin.
Pattis called the jury's finding "chilling."
"With regard to the question of damages, they [the jurors] confound me in this case," Pattis said. "Are we to believe that Mr. Pozner's feeling are so special that we are prohibited from reading what Mr. Fetzer has to say?"
Pattis said he doesn't know "how seriously Mr. Fetzer contested liability. In Mr. Jones' case, we intend to contest liability robustly."
While Pozner is said to have denied that his lawsuit against the authors was about the First Amendment, Pattis said, "Of course it's a case of the First Amendment. At some point, the public has to say that, as tragic as these events were, we need to pick up from our beds and walk. This decision troubles me deeply."
In a statement emailed to the Connecticut Law Tribune after the jury ruling, Josh Koskoff, lead attorney for the families, said, "The rights conferred by the First Amendment do not serve as a license to engage in smear campaigns. Craven opportunists who invent facts and publish lies at the expense of others are not contributing to the marketplace of ideas, only to the marketplace of greed."
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