> The judge implied, and outright told the jury during the trail that Alex was guilty before the jury deliberated

The judge issued a default judgement against Jones for persistent refusal to meet discovery obligations. The jury trial was about damages, not liability (“guilt” is not strictly at issue, since it is a civil and not a criminal case.)

Default judgement is a sanction available for that kind of persistent misconduct in civil cases. (And Jones has two more of them in Sandy Hook cases for the same reason, one in the same Texas court, another in Connecticut. The default judgements in both Texas cases refer to the noncompliance in all three cases in their factual background.)

hmm that's odd as I explicitly remember a moment when Alex himself complained the had been declared "guilty" by the judge without a trial and he said "I believe I am innocent until proven guilty". The judge them reminded him that it was a civil matter and not a criminal matter, therefore there is no "guilty" and "not guilty" there is only "liable" and "not liable" and he was deemed "liable" by default when he failed to respond to the plaintiff's lawsuit.

Jones did not have a jury trial for determining guilt, the judge gave a summary judgement to the plaintiffs because Jones allegedly did not fully comply with discovery. She accurately explained, as a matter of law, that he was guilty. That had been determined at the point of the summary judgement.

What happened recently and in the news was just the jury determining the size of the punishment.