I am astounded how someone can sit on the stand and spew lie after lie after lie under oath with no repercussions.
The system falls apart if it can't enforce its own rules, and if we don't see some serious perjury charges here, I think it's a very bad sign.
The message will no longer be: It's unacceptable to cheat and lie to win.
It will be: Cheat and lie better.
-- edit: I'd like to see at least two felony perjury charges against Jones. Ideally with max sentences.
The justice system is designed to find out the truth about disputed events or actions. Deliberately lying to it is a direct attack on its mission and should be considered a criminal offence.
This is almost the definition of perjury.
The crime is deceiving through lies and fraud (or bribes), speech is just the tool used to achieve that.
I was deposed to give testimony once in a dispute between two other parties and it was nerve wracking to give testimony about a few questions because it was stuff I hadn't thought about in a couple of year.
Turns out it's no big deal to lie under oath?
This is really troubling, how can we have the rule of law if lying under oath is allowed for some people?
I sat in a jury for a DUI case. Their lead witness, a narcotics cop, lied blatantly on the stand in complete opposition to his deposition.
We jurors made up our minds 10 minutes in - not guilty. But this cop? He perjured himself. And not so much as a peep from the judge.
This might be somewhat unique in that the perjury charges relate to hiding evidence as well (rather than just running counter to the evidence). And, obviously, that Alex Jones isn't a cop, so that particular fetishism of law enforcement the US operates under doesn't apply.
It has nothing to do with his perjury.
Low multiples of compensatory damages would be more accurate.
Although we all want to see our "political enemies" and indecent people everywhere punished, we have to stop calling for people to be jailed without clear crimes being committed. The whole "lock her up" for Hillary that the Trump crowd chanted disgusts me, but likewise so do people calling for Trump to be prosecuted and jailed when they cannot pin an actual crime on him.
If we turn into a nation of "show me the man, I'll show you the crime" I will bugger off to a small island somewhere. We cannot rule by mob sentiment, laws matter.
The jury got to see that he was a liar. Do you think that played no part in their decision? Do you think it will play no part in their decision on punitive damages?
Or did you mean something more like prison? The provable perjury happened, what, two days ago? Indictments like that don't happen overnight, but I hope (and maybe even trust) that it is in fact coming.
Link to one of these past perjury situations where there were no repercussions?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper
See:
https://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/03/perjury-by-permission-...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...
https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73...
Additionally, Clapper was part of the government, testifying on something the government wanted kept quiet.
* fidgeted with everything * couldn't focus * couldn't follow simple instructions * would forget about something said a short time ago * has extreme paranoia, borderline schizophrenic to me
I suppose some specific kinds of lies could be crimes, but there should be a high bar for both the type of lie told as well as the certainty that it's really a lie.
> there should be a high bar for both the type of lie told as well as the certainty that it's really a lie.
Perjury convictions are a fairly high bar. People don't generally get charged for "flimsy inconsistencies in their statements." Prosecutors, judges, and juries don't have endless time to spend on getting someone.