A jury has been selected in the defamation trial of Alex Jones. That is, a jury has been seated which will address the damages phase of his trial. This is surely one of the strangest lawsuits in modern times. Mr. Jones defaulted on the liability portion of the trial. This trial will be in Austin, Travis County. There are two separate defamation actions against him. One is in Travis County and the other is in Connecticut. I previously wrote about his default in Travis County here. The odd thing is he not only refused to respond to legitimate discovery requests, he persisted in that refusal for years. The judge really was left with only one choice, the nuclear option, to find him guilty of what he had been accused. Why would any party default in a lawsuit? We may never know. The odd thing is he is still paying his lawyers. That suggests he has financial resources. For unfathomable reasons, he prefers simply to resist or delay the action.
Jury selection appears to have gone well for the plaintiffs. When asked who had negative views of Mr. Jones, nearly two dozen potential jurors raised their hands. Even if these persons were struck from the jury, such views that early in the process tend to migrate to the remaining jurors.
See AP news report here.