Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a roughly $1.4 billion judgment that Connecticut courts entered against him for calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax.
In a petition filed Friday and released by the court on Tuesday, Jones’ lawyers argued that the trial judge was wrong to find him liable without a merits trial and that the default judgment imposed on Jones and his company violated constitutional protections for free speech and against excessive punishment.
Judge Barbara Bellis entered a rare default ruling against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, in late 2021 after finding repeated failures to comply with court orders and to produce evidence requested by the Sandy Hook families. The default finding meant the judge treated certain factual allegations as established without a merits trial; a jury later determined damages.
A six-person jury in Waterbury awarded $964 million in October 2022 to an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of the victims. Bellis subsequently added about $473 million in punitive damages. Relatives of the victims testified during the damages trial that followers of Jones subjected them to death and rape threats, in-person harassment and abusive social media comments; Jones’ petition argues there was no proof linking him to those threats or harassment.
Jones’ attorneys — Ben Broocks, Shelby Jordan and Alan Daughtry — told the Supreme Court in their petition that state courts cannot determine liability based solely on sanctions such as default rulings and that longstanding precedent requires public-figure plaintiffs to meet higher standards when pursuing defamation claims against media figures. The petition also characterizes Jones’ statements about the shooting as “expressions of constitutionally protected opinion” and contends that the $1.4 billion award constitutes excessive punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
The petition cites broader free-speech concerns, warning that upholding the judgment could “chill the reporting of news” and lead to self-censorship. It also draws a distinction between statements that critique events and statements that attack the reputation of people associated with those events, saying the former are protected.
Lawyers for the Sandy Hook families disputed Jones’ account of events and resist his constitutional arguments. “There is no legitimate basis for the U.S. Supreme Court to accept this last gasp from Alex Jones and we will oppose it in due course,” Christopher Mattei, counsel for the families, said in a statement.
A Connecticut appellate court in December largely upheld the lower-court rulings, sustaining the judgment in all but $150 million, and the Connecticut Supreme Court declined to take Jones’ appeal in April. Separately, a Texas jury in August 2022 awarded $49 million to the parents of another Sandy Hook victim after a judge there found Jones liable without a merits trial for failing to turn over documents; that verdict is also on appeal.
Jones filed for bankruptcy in late 2022. A November auction intended to liquidate Infowars’ assets to satisfy the defamation judgments initially selected the satirical outlet The Onion as the winning bidder, but a bankruptcy judge later voided the sale, citing problems with the process. Attempts to sell Infowars’ assets have moved to Texas state court in Austin, where a receiver has been appointed to liquidate assets; Jones is appealing that order. Some of Jones’ personal property has been sold as part of the bankruptcy proceedings.
Jones has since said he believes the Sandy Hook shooting was “100% real.” The Supreme Court receives thousands of petitions each term and accepts only a small fraction for review; whether it will grant review in this case is pending.