Jones had paid $75,000 in fines and finally appeared for deposition after ignoring a court order to appear. Now, his attorneys are moving to have the fines returned since he showed up. Is this normal procedure? How is it in any way punitive if the fines are returned? What is the deterrence value? Jones gets to decide when to obey court orders and there is no real fallout? Joe Schmo misses a court date for a speeding ticket and gets locked up for failure to appear.
Is it normal procedure to have the fines returned? Or normal procedure to move to have them returned?
I suspect that from Jones’s point of view, being forced to sit for the deposition was incredibly punitive, and ultimately far more damaging to his bottom line than a $75,000 fine.
Both, but I guess more the latter.
Whether sitting for the deposition is punitive or not doesn’t matter. Its certainly not intended to be. I’m just asking if its routine for a person to refuse a court order until they are good and ready to comply and not be sanctioned somehow. Based on his actions, Jones was basically giving the judge the middle finger. I’m sure $75,000 is pocket change to Jones but I can’t fathom why a judge would return it. Don’t tell me that there are different rules for the wealthy.
Maybe there should be. The fine should have been $750,000.
I think in one of the Nordic Countries the fines for speeding are based on your wealth.
The point of the fine was to “force” Jones into being deposed. It worked. I would have rather he was sitting in jail, but apparently, that’s not the penalty for refusing to appear in this jurisdiction. Since he ultimately complied I can see why the judge would return the fine. Life isn’t fair.
I suppose the questions boil down to this:
- What was the judge’s primary desired outcome?
- What was the minimum amount of leverage needed to make that happen?
One thing about having authority over people who reject that authority is that it’s very easy to slip into ultimately unproductive games of one-upmanship.
It seems to me that saying “I’m going to take money away from you, but I’ll give it back when you do what I say” was the right amount of leverage.* If it hadn’t worked, it would’ve been easy enough to escalate from there.
Likewise, what motivates your wish for the court to keep the money? To send a message to Jones, or to everyone else? Mission accomplished - Jones played his games and still ended up in court.
FWIW, I would’ve shed zero tears if he’d been hauled to court in cuffs, but schadenfreude is not what the court is after.
*I believe that was the original order, but I can’t find the article from earlier in the week that I saw it in.
I think that the court should keep the money or give it to the plaintiffs (although I’m sure that’s not even allowed) The plaintiffs have been inconvenienced by Jones’ not following the rules. It would be one thing if he really was sick but that wasn’t the case. The desired outcome was to have Jones appear on a certain day. Jones did not. Was the desired outcome just to have Jones appear eventually, whenever he feels like it? What’s to stop him from just blowing off the next required appearance? Maybe I’m old fashioned but if I’m told to be somewhere by someone with the authority to give such an order, I’m going to be there or expect some negative consequences. Its no wonder that court cases drag on so long. I fault the judge. If the original order said, “I’m gong to fine you in increasing amounts until you show up and when you finally do, I’ll drop the fines.”, I fail to see the point in issuing the order.
BTW, did the court ever actually have the fine money?
I thought there is a desire for the rapid administration of justice. Someone delaying a case by holding out goes against this. A fine tries to speed things up, but if there is a precedent that fines will be returned if the deposition is finally given, delayers have every incentive to delay until just before the point they can get thrown in jail for contempt. The legal system is slow enough already, we don’t want to give incentives for people to make it slower.
“Don’t play games” is a pretty important message to send to everyone. “As long as you can loan the court $75,000, feel free to play all the games you want” is not a great message, and will encourage other folks to fuck around like this, to the court’s detriment.
In my state, there are two kinds of contempt, punitive and nonpunitive.
Nonpunitive can result in indefinite terms of probation or jail – until compliance occurs – and per-day fines until compliance occurs.
The point of nonpunitive contempt is to force compliance with a court order. The point of punitive contempt is primarily to punish past contemptuous conduct. It can be punished by fines, fixed terms of jail time or probation, etc.
To get punitive sanctions, there’s a lot more involved – it’s treated much more like a criminal offense in terms of rights and process. The D.A. has to agree to file the charge, for example.
All that said, I have never heard of the per-day fine being returned in a nonpunitive contempt case. The point is that it costs you more money the longer you delay compliance. You have forfeited that money by not complying when ordered. It’s ridiculous, in my view, to ask for it back. You chose to pay it rather than comply, and presumably decided to comply exactly because you wanted to stop having to pay. No way should the per-day fine be returned. You bought delay. Too bad you didn’t spend your money more wisely.
(In my state there is also an exception that allows punitive sanctions on the spot for contempt in the presence of the judge, but that’s really not Germaine here.)
WTF? Is the judicial system just supposed to throw up their hands and say “We tried” and give the money back (if they ever got it in the first place).
Go arrest the stupid shit, and throw him in jail for the same amount of time that he has dragged this out, and then drag his ass to court right from his cell.
Shit. Yes, I’m delving into banana republic here, but we can’t even hold the man that tried to overthrow the government accountable. It’s absurd. We can’t hold any of these people accountable? It’s $$$$ all the way down.
Finland.
Fines are based on an amount called a “day fine,” which is defined as 1/60 of the offender’s average monthly income. IIRC, the dude who founded Nokia holds the record. In fact, the Top Two spots.
I honestly did NOT realize Alex Jones is wealthy enough to consider $75,000 to be “pocket change”. Is their a cite or info somewhere about his net worth?
Forbes say 135m (from another site quoting them). I am seeing other sites saying 5m.
Alex Jones Net Worth is $135 Million (Forbes 2022) Assets Wealth (caknowledge.com)
Does anyone have knowledge of the precedence for requesting such fines back, and the likelihood of the request being granted, in the jurisdiction in question? The deposition was held Tuesday and Wednesday and the articles from today, Thursday, that I’ve seen so far only mentions the request was made.
I think we’re putting the cart before the horse, here. His attorneys have asked for the fines to be returned. Attorneys ask for all sorts of ridiculous things. Is there any reason to believe that their request will be granted?
I looked more for where I read this and couldn’t find it, so I must’ve made it up.
I think we should let Germaine be the judge of that.