Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who questioned the authenticity of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, received a favorable response from a Texas appeals court Wednesday in his effort to reduce a $50 million verdict for defamation.
During oral arguments in Austin, justices on the Third Court of Appeals suggested a jury should’ve been asked specifically to decide whether to award Sandy Hook parents more than the $1.5 million statutory cap on damages. Instead, the trial judge allowed the parents’ lawyer to add a cap-busting claim months after trial, which Justice Chari Kelly indicated came too late.
“How would the trial have been different if the cap-buster had been amended,” before trial? Kelly asked Jones’ lawyer, Ben Broocks of Broocks Law Firm PLLC.
In response, Broocks, who didn’t represent Jones at trial, said there’s no way of telling how it might have impacted legal strategy.
The parents, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, showed no evidence that harassment they endured from Jones flaming the conspiracy impaired them to the point that they’d be entitled to damages above the cap, Chief Justice Darlene Byrne said.
Byrne added that Jones could have decided to give the parents more discovery records if he’d known ahead of trial that he’d be exposed to larger damages. As it was, the trial court judge found Jones didn’t comply with discovery orders and issued a default judgment, a so-called death penalty sanction.
Jones, who sat in the front row, stayed silent for the 40-minute argument. Outside of court, he declined to answer questions on the case other than to say he can’t afford the $50 million verdict or, for that matter, a $1.4 billion verdict in Connecticut on a related Sandy Hook conspiracy case because he’s never had more than $10 million. The two verdicts pushed Jones into bankruptcy in 2022.
Outside of court, the parents’ lawyer, Mark Bankston, mocked Jones, enthusiastically greeting him, “Hey man!” Jones didn’t respond.
In court, Bankston of Farrar & Ball LLP called the court’s decision “pretty worthless” because Heslin and Lewis will get a share of the Connecticut judgment, which that state’s supreme court recently upheld, and Jones won’t have any money for the Texas verdict.
Before arguments began, Byrne informed the lawyers that the court wouldn’t be ruling on a motion for sanctions that Bankston filed on Monday.
Pursuing sanctions on appeal is “unique and concerning for me,” Byrne told Bankston. Not so, he replied, noting that in 2020 the same court sanctioned Jones in this case.
On the cap buster question, Bankston cautioned the court against setting a precedent that would alleviate Jones of the trial court verdict on the grounds that he didn’t produce records that could’ve helped his defense.
That sends a message that “compliance with the rules is conditional” on the size of the verdict, he said.
The court seemed less likely to overrule the trial court’s order handing the families a default win based on Jones disobeying discovery orders.
Broocks, Jones’ lawyer, said the trial court can issue stern disciplinary measures but that the First Amendment protects him from a default judgment.
“You’re telling me the trial court’s hands are tied even staring down a defendant thumbing their nose at them?” Byrne asked.
The case is Jones v. Heslin, Tex. App., 3d Dist., No. 03-23-00209-cv, 5/28/25.
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