By now, most people have heard that Alex Jones’ lawyer mistakenly gave the attorneys representing Sandy Hook parents the entire contents of Jones’ cell phone. This includes text messages and emails dating back years. Much of this information contradicts sworn testimony that Jones (and others, I suppose) offered.
So, what happens next? Is Jones’ lawyer in trouble for making such a devastating mistake? I suppose the evidence can be used to pursue perjury charges against Jones and whoever else lied. Can law enforcement simply browse through this data looking for other crimes (without probable cause to look for a specific crime)?
I chose this forum because Jones is a political figure. I can see where this topic could fit in several other fora, however.
As far as I know, the lawyer for the Sandy Hook parents did the proper thing and notified Jones’ lawyers that they had (mistakenly?) sent the entire contents of the phone. These lawyers then had 10 days to say “oops, our bad, please send it back”, and this is what would have happened.
However, they did not respond to the warning that they had sent the entire contents of the phone to the opposing lawyers within the specified time period . This means that the information on the phone is now the property of the opposing lawyers, and they may do with it what they wish, including turning it all over to other investigative bodies.
The other fly in the ointment for Jones’ lawyers is that these phone records had been specifically requested in the discovery process. and Jones (and his lawyers presumably) had said that no records existed. So they lied, and withheld evidence. That fact that it showed up later simply means that they complied with the legal discovery process.
Can’t Jones use this huge blunder for an appeal of having had insufficient/incompetent counsel, if he loses the trial? It’s a pretty big error for a lawyer to make.
I’m not sure what happens now but I did enjoy the grilling by the lawyer representing the Sandy Hook parents gave to Jones which led to a superb shot of the camera panning to Jones’s lawyer sitting back stroking his chin as if he knew at that moment he had messed up!
I think that they can be appealed but I don’t think that they can be appealed for incompetent counsel. Unlike criminal proceedings, you don’t have a constitutional right to a lawyer in civil proceedings. So if you pick a bad one that’s on you.
I would assume that, technically, they requested materials relevant to the matter and not the entirety of his phone’s contents. They got more than they requested but, certainly, the fact that it proved that they were lying to the judge about what exists is relevant.
Secondarily to this is that Jones has probably been in contact with people about other inethical and criminal matters, and those people have probably also been lying about having materials relevant to production requests by other judges. Once you have Jones’ side of the conversation, that shows that the other person was also lying, which will allow the judges in those cases to go nuclear and gain access to their devices. That will, in turn, expose one side of the conversation in more cases, against other people… And so on.
As I understand it, this is a procedural fuckup on the part of Jones’ lawyers. Basically they should have disclosed all this in the first place, but didn’t.
Then they accidentally did but weren’t aware that they had, and this allowed the opposing counsel to catch Jones in an outright lie on the stand, as well as show that the lawyers hadn’t done what they were supposed to as well.
Basically Jones is now on the hook for perjury/contempt, and the lawyers may be as well. Plus, they’re now open to being successfully sued by Jones because of this.
Personally, I think the judge ought to be merciless and chuck his ass in jail for contempt and/or perjury.
From the side of Jones’ lawyers, I think it will be a question how they came to have all of Jones’ phone information and yet were telling the judge that he didn’t have anything. I assume that, even in a civil matter, the judge can refer the lawyers for ethics violations?
In my wish list… I also hope that the phone contains details of Jones’ plans to hide his money from the plaintiffs. So this can be used in future when they are squeezing the cash out of him.
Probably not, but he can sue them for being incompetent and not doing what lawyers are supposed to, which would have been to cough up all those texts and emails and whatever on his phone. I’m not sure it matters if he demanded they not do that, unless there’s also proof that they were doing what he asked.
Even then, I think it’s still a screwup on the part of the lawyers to not do that, independent of whatever Jones wanted.
I’ve been following this pretty closely, and from the hearing this morning, it appears that this is what happened:
Defense sends a link to discovery info. The link instead allowed access to a ton of stuff that wasn’t supposed to be delivered.
Plaintiff asks if that was intended.
Defense replies that it wasn’t, to please disregard, and that he would send a new link.
Defense does not send a new link.
Plaintiff takes that failure to send a new link as permission to use the old one- this relies on a technical reading of Texas law.
The judge refuses to grant a mistrial, gives the defense one day to review the material for confidentiality, and allows it’s release to the January 6th committee.
Defense requests discovery of relevant info about Sandy Hook text on Jones phone.
Jones and his lawyers claim there are no such texts
Lawyers accidentally send entire phone contents to opposing counsel
Phone contents reveal that Jones and/or lawyer were lying about no Sandy Hook information on phone.
Also, it’s my understanding that the defense did not reply to the opposing counsel, and never said “please disregard we will send a new link” Where did you hear this from?